In A Heartbeat
by foreverlasting24
Summary: Cristina returns to Seattle, four years after leaving, to conduct heart surgery on a beloved Grey Sloan Memorial doctor.
1. Chapter 1

Cristina strolls out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a small suitcase in hand, and calls out for a yellow cab. It has been four years since she has been back at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital; the city exhales a scent of familiarity, but also an devastating air of obscurity. She has been asked to return many times, of course—for special consults and remarkable heart surgeries and weddings and five year we-survived-a-plane-crash anniversary gatherings. But she couldn't bring herself to come back. Cristina was already doing cutting edge surgeries, conducting groundbreaking medicinal research, so there's that. And truth be told, she didn't want to see her friends' lives going on without her, or witness tearful wedding parties, or bear another set of rotational goodbyes.

To return to a place she had a deepest trouble leaving, Cristina needed a push. And there was nothing quite like Richard Webber's cardiac tumor to get her to down a bottle of tequila, strap herself onto the soonest flight to Seattle, and step through the hospital doors and into a flood of old memories.

When she walked into the lobby, she couldn't recognize anyone. Thelma, the nurse who was usually in the front, isn't there anymore, and the surgeons usually floating around the ER wing are new interns and residents that she'd never met.

"Hi," Cristina says to the perky redheaded nurse, who had just hung up the phone. "I'm Dr. Cristina Yang. I'm here for Dr. Webber. What room is he in?"

"Oh, you're the infamous Dr. Yang!" she responds, and Cristina jumps as she claps her hands together enthusiastically. "Oh, it's so great to meet you. I'm Cindy. We've never met, but I started working here when you left for Zurich and the people in this hospital just _love_ you and, here, let me just check where Dr. Webber is and I can take you there myself—"

"That's all right, Cindy. I can take her there."

Cristina whips her head around at a voice she has only been hearing through a muffled cell phone or shaky Skype call. Smiling, Cristina turns around to throw her arms around Meredith, squeezing her tight. "It's good to see you," she says tearfully. When they break apart, she notices Meredith's cotton, dark maroon dress, and her new lab coat fitted swiftly over her shoulders. On the corner of the jacket, it reads: Meredith Grey, M.D. Chief of Surgery. "I can't believe it," Cristina says, and the look on Meredith's face indicates that she knows exactly what Cristina is referring to. "Seems like just yesterday that you were a gullible intern fighting over surgeries and making googly eyes at McDreamy."

"Oh, don't get all emotional," Meredith says, laughing. "Plus, you were always the gullible one."

"Untrue. How's Richard?"

"He's holding on," Meredith responds, her face shifting to slight somberness. She takes Cristina's suitcase from behind her and nods her head towards the end of the hallway. Cristina follows her through the crowds, of interns waiting to get their hands on the next incoming trauma, of residents stealing surgeries from each other, of attendings examining scans and strategizing their next move. A room full of chaos, an ER stocked up with patients, and she can't help but think of him. Cristina wants to ask Meredith where _he_ is, what _he_ is up to, if _he_ is dating someone new, but she bites her tongue.

When they enter Richard's room, he is sitting up, a bunch of tubes extending from his face, and his heart monitored beside him. His eyes are sleepy when he looks up, but he tries to smile all the same.

"Yang," Richard says, his voice crackly. "How's Zurich?"

Cristina smiles, and takes the stethoscope that Meredith offers to check Richard's heartbeat. "We're going to take good care of you, okay?" she whispers to Richard, giving him the most reassuring face she could muster. "Don't you worry."

"How could I?" He lifts his hand to place on top of Cristina's, who is listening closely to a very muggy, irregular heart. "The cardio goddess is here."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you for all your reviews so far! Going to try my best to see this story till the end.**

 **Derek is alive in this fanfic! I refuse to believe that they've killed him off, so I'm choosing to ignore it. Medical reference:**

 **content/cardiac_tumor_**

 **Enjoy, and please feel free to leave a review :)**

* * *

"We need do the surgery tomorrow morning," Cristina says, as she takes a sip of her coffee, which she bought from her favorite truck around the corner from the hospital. She and Meredith are sitting in the conference room with Richard's scans spread on the table, brainstorming the best possible way to extract the massive tumor from Richard Webber's heart. "There is increased pressure in the left atrium, which can easily lead to cardiac myxoma. I can tell he's having shortness of breath, so there is a very real possibility that there a blocked blood flow through the mitral valve."

Meredith nods. "That's probably why he's been having such a hard time lying down."

Cristina presses her palms against her eyes, breathing in and out.

"Are you nervous?"

"No," Cristina responds immediately. "Just tired."

"You can ask about him, if you want," Meredith offers, and Cristina looks up. "Owen, I mean."

"I know what you mean. But I'm good." Cristina twirls the coffee cup in her hand, fingers trailing along the lid. "I've moved on."

"One night stands and boyfriends you cut off when it starts to get serious does not count as moving on, Cristina."

"Whatever is going on in his life is his own business," Cristina snaps, shooting Meredith an annoyed glance, "not mine."

"You're allowed to be curious if—"

" _Meredith._ "

"All right, I'll shut up."

Cristina sighs. "When is this meeting supposed to start anyway?" She looks at her watch, wondering when this day would end. She just wants to do Richard's surgery, save his life in the best way she knows how, and leave before she could make any more promises to anyone. Thinking this, she starts to ask Meredith a question, but is interrupted when a group of familiar faces enter the conference room. Cristina stands up to indulge in exchanges of awkward hugs and new greetings.

"Looks like we'll be working together on Dr. Webber," Maggie Pierce says, shaking Cristina's hand from across the table. Cristina tries not to laugh, as she examines Maggie's face for any resemblance to her half-sister. Callie gives Cristina a tight hug, and Cristina notices that Arizona sneaks away from her ex-wife and waves from the other side of the room. Edwards strides in with Derek, who squeezes Cristina's shoulder, and two eager residents–a petite blonde and dopey-looking kid who reminds her of Shane –ogle at Cristina like she is an urban myth. It was just like Grey Sloan Memorial to put together a room full of the best surgeons to fight over which route of operation is best for Richard Webber.

"Way to show up for my wedding, Yang." Cristina jumps up to see Alex standing against the doorway. He peeks in, shooting her a half-amused, half-annoyed glance.

"I am happy that you and the street-kid got hitched, but I had a _patient_ , Alex," Cristina says, rolling her eyes. She makes a point not to look at Meredith, who knows that isn't the entire story. Alex had finally gotten married to Jo Wilson two months ago, a scenic ceremony against a sandy sunset, and asked Meredith and Cristina to be his best men in the wedding party. Cristina tried to be a part of the planning as best she could, but she could only offer a sincere promise that she would show up and be there. The morning of, she had to conduct an emergency surgery on Reena Dumphy, her patient with an arrhythmic left ventricle cardiomyopathy, which lasted at least half way through the ceremony. She could have gotten on a plane. She could have made the reception, already drunk, so she didn't have to remember anything on the flight back. She could have, she could have—but she didn't want to. _It wasn't meant to be_ , she kept telling herself. She could have, but she was selfish, and she wasn't proud of it. But you don't need to be proud to be relieved.

"Whatever, we had fun without you," Alex says. Just as Cristina thinks he is gone, she watches as he strolls back to the doorway and adds, "By the way, I'm glad you're back. I'll catch you later."

She can't help but grin. As everyone takes their seats, Cristina shuffles through the scans and stands up. "As you all probably know," she begins slowly, "Dr. Webber has a primary cardiac tumor about the size of a golf ball. It is malignant and it is growing rapidly. I believe that the best approach is to conduct the procedure as soon as possible, by tomorrow morning, and try to resect the tumor robotically. It'll give us more control over the procedure, and I've done it a number of times overseas."

There are many nods across the room, but Maggie clears her throat.

"Something you want to add, Pierce?" Meredith prompts curiously.

"I think Dr. Yang's approach is ideal," Maggie says hesitantly. "But we might want to consider the possibility of opening him up. The scans can only show so much, and we don't want to risk the possibility of an embolism."

"His heart can't handle that much trauma," Cristina argues. "Plus, opening him up can lead to more blood loss, more risk of infection, and a hell of a longer recovery time."

"I'm going to have to go with Yang on this one," Derek offers, looking between the two surgeons. "Opening him up can be risky."

"Maybe I haven't done as many of these procedures as you," Maggie says, looking Cristina straight in the eye. "I just want to make sure that everything is clear, that we know what we're doing in that OR. Richard Webber is a fighter."

"He is," Cristina agrees, her eyes softening. "But his heart is failing."

She glances around the room, at the faces deep in thought, lost in frustration. There was a time when she felt that same way, and expected to see Owen across the room, reassuring her with nod, or a slight upward crinkle on the corner of his lip. _His heart is failing_ , she had said. And for a moment, her heart feels heavy inside her chest, as she breathes in deep.

After another discussion, and an exploration of Plan-A-Plan-B options, the team of surgeons decides to go with the robotic-assisted atrial tumor resection, and the two excited residents book an OR for the next morning. Wearily, Cristina collects the scan into her arms and dumps the rest of her coffee into the garbage can next to her.

Meredith looks at Cristina, as the overflow of people exit. "Let's get a drink."

* * *

"They can't just end it," Cristina says, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "I mean, nobody ends it for no reason."

"They've been on and off for so long, ever since you left," Meredith explains, as she takes a seat on the couch between Cristina and Alex with three wine glass refills. "But they just couldn't make it work. No one has a clue why."

"Oh, please. There is no way Callie keeps her mouth shut about these things."

"Better believe it. I haven't heard a peep."

"They can't even sit next to each other in the same room," Cristina murmurs, thinking out loud.

Alex snorts. "Arizona says they keep moving in and out with each other. Their kid is probably so confused about the whole thing. I mean, stay together or not—but don't get the kid involved."

"Evil spawn," Cristina starts, placing her hand on Alex's and trying her best not to laugh. "Why are you talking about children like you're ready to raise them?"

"Oh shut up, Yang," Alex says, shaking her off. He is already drunk. "Shouldn't you be getting on Mer's case? She's popping out like two kids a year. I'm pretty sure she's gonna blow up with the whole Best-Mom-Best-Surgeon war going on inside her head."

Meredith gives her friends a pointed look, as she sips her wine. Two years after Bailey was born, the McDreamys adopted another baby girl, Kasey, who had taken her first steps in front of her Aunt Cristina just a few hours earlier. Now, they were thinking about having another kid.

"It's just a thought," Meredith explains defensively, as Cristina grabs her glass of wine. "I don't even think it's feasible right now. With Derek spending random weeks at a time in D.C., it's not like I can handle four kids by myself when he is gone."

"Plus, the whole Chief thing," Cristina adds, as she and Alex both burst out laughing.

"Well," Meredith says, setting her empty wine glass on the coffee table, standing up, and grabbing the ones in Cristina and Alex's hands.

"What the—"

"Hey, that's mine—"

"I can see that you two are irretrievably hammered," Meredith says, as Cristina and Alex clamber over each other to snag the expensive wine bottle from the table. "And as the mature, grown-up in this room—"

"Grandma," snickers Alex.

"—I am going to bed, and I suggest you two to do the same."

After a reminder of which closet the extra blankets were in, and bickering between Cristina and Alex about who gets the guest bedroom—which Alex sneakily kidnapped under Cristina's nose—Cristina found herself snuggled in the living room couch. Even after four years, she still knew where everything in Meredith's made-from-scratch mansion was. And although she will never know how to fully maneuver the kitchen, she did know how to make a decent cup of coffee. So she unwinds the same way she does back in Zurich, back at home: a fleece blanket, a steaming mug of coffee to sober her up, and the most recent installment of _Surgery Today_.

Still, she finds herself getting distracted. Cristina doesn't get nervous about surgeries. She is eager and ready; she knows her next move, and the one after that. But this is Richard Webber, with a cardiac tumor that is known have a mind of its own, to go into a direction that you don't steer it towards, that is capable of creeping out from your control. Nothing is expected, but she needs to expect everything. She reaches over to her briefcase and pulls out Richard's scans again, running through the procedure in her mind.

Sighing, she thinks of Owen, and she curses herself for it. Sure, Meredith updates her on things that happen in the hospital, on all the gossip that floats around. She knows that he's been a part of a huge project with Torres on building prosthetics specifically designed for war veterans. She knows that he started dating Derek's little sister, not long after she left. But Owen has always been private with his life, and she knows that, which is why she finds herself closing the conversation as soon as Meredith has something to spill. What she doesn't know won't hurt her.

 _Ding dong._

Cristina jumps as she hears the doorbell, stifling her gasp. She is already half asleep, the darkness around her enveloping her heavy thoughts. Footsteps thump from upstairs, and she hears Meredith call out sleepily, "Can you answer that, Cristina? It's probably Derek. He always forgets his keys when he works the night shift."

"Fine," Cristina responds groggily, standing up and stretching her arms. As she switches the light on and pads through the living room to the door, she notices the male frame against the foggy doors and starts to ramble irritably, "Jeez, Derek. You're going to wake up your own kids ringing the doorbell like that, and it was so incredibly hard for Mer and I to get the latest toddler to sleep. I mean, seriously, how do you forget your own key—"

Cristina trails off, eyes wide when she opens the door to find that the man standing outside, in the cold, is definitely not Derek Shepherd. She drops her hand from the door knob and lets it fall to her side.

"Hi Cristina," Owen says.


	3. Chapter 3

Cristina tries to compose her face, to mask her surprise, but judging his expression, he looks just as shocked as she feels. It is surreal seeing him standing in front of her. He is looking at her, scanning her face, her wild curls and sleepy eyes, and the rest of her body, covered in a white tank and plaid pajama pants. He hasn't changed much either, she realizes. His strawberry blond hair is in bed of organized and messy tufts over his head, and he's wearing one of those long coats he always wore too early in the winter season, over his dark blue scrubs. He'd come from the hospital, and being that Cristina hadn't seen him, he was probably in surgery all day. His light blue eyes peer into hers, and she finds herself looking away.

"Hey," she says, choosing to stare at his sneakers. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, um," he starts, and Cristina can tell he's a bit flustered, embarrassed even. She watches as he digs through his briefcase and pulls out MRI scans of what looks like a massive brain tumor. "These are for Derek. Um, another doctor at the hospital wanted me to swing by and give it to him. I know it's late, but I saw the lights on…"

Cristina takes the scans from him as his voice trails off. _What doctor?_ She thinks to herself. _Is he talking about Amelia Shepherd? Why can't she give the scans to her own damn brother?_ "I can give these to him when he gets home. I think he is working the late shift tonight," she says, consciously avoiding his long, hard gaze. "Is that all?"

Owen clears his throat. "I didn't know you were staying here tonight."

 _Where else would I stay?_ She wants to say.

"How are you?"

There were many ways Cristina could answer this. She could go on talking about her breakthrough research in printing a complete, functional human heart, and all the surgeries she had the opportunity to do. It would be the safest option, to circle back to each other through medicine. Or she could pretend her life is amazing—that she's found someone again, that she feels as whole and full as he probably does, that she's happy. Or she could be honest.

"I'm great," she says instead. "How are you?"

He smiles a little."I'm good."

There is a painfully awkward silence between them; neither wants to be the first to turn away. Seeing him out in the cold, she wants to ask him so much, about the surgery he just finished, about his family. She used to know exactly what he's thinking about, but his face is unreadable to her now.

"Are you nervous about tomorrow?" he asks, raising a brow.

"I don't get nervous," she says, and he laughs, the sound wandering inside. "Will you be watching the surgery in the morning?"

"I'm managing the pit tomorrow because April called in sick," Owen says, "but I'll definitely stop by."

Cristina nods, instinctively crossing her hands on her arms as a cold breeze sweeps in through the doorway. She notices that he notices her shiver, but before he can open his mouth, Meredith's tired voice lifts from down the hall, "Derek? What's taking so long?" It isn't until Meredith comes into full view, cloaked in a furry robe, silk pants, and bunny slippers, that she pauses to look frantically from both Cristina to Owen at least a dozen times. Her reaction is not half as subtle as Cristina's.

"Oh shit," Meredith says, coming closer to them and taking the scans from Cristina. "I totally forgot Derek mentioned you coming by. I'm so sorry."

 _You knew?_ Cristina shouts at Meredith with her eyes.

Meredith avoids her best friend's gaze. "You must be cold. Do you want to come in?"

"No I'm good," Owen says, shaking his head. He looks at Cristina again, who decides it is best to simply keep her eyes planted on his shoes. "It's late. You guys should get some rest."

"We will," Meredith says hastily. "Good night, Owen."

"Good night," he responds, and he and Cristina make eye contact. "It was good seeing you, Cristina."

Cristina musters a smile, stepping back as Meredith extends her hand to close the door. She bites her lip, wanting to say more as she watches him turn away, but catches herself.

"You too," she responds softly.

When the door closes, she looks at Meredith, who is far more alert than she was two minutes ago. "You okay?" she asks.

"You," Cristina says, grabbing Meredith by the arm, "need to give me an update. _Now_."

* * *

The morning sun hits the side of Cristina's face, warm and tingling. With the high, skyscraper windows that Derek has built, it is hard for anyone in this house to sleep past sunrise. And with Cristina's jet lag and constant carousel of thoughts, she found herself at the kitchen table, a fresh cup of coffee in hand, and papers replaying Richard's operation in front of her. It is 7:15AM, which means she still has an hour and forty five minutes to get dressed, intake as much caffeine as possible, and shove the images and information she has from last night out of her mind.

 _Out of sight, out of mind_ , she says to herself. _Today is Richard Webber's big day_.

"Cristina, you can take my car if you need to get to the hospital early," Derek offers, coming into the kitchen with Kasey in his arms. An excited Zola and Bailey follow behind him, Frozen and Batman backpacks swung over their shoulders. "Meredith and I will be in late, and we'll watch the surgery from the gallery."

Cristina opens her mouth to respond, but Meredith's voice cuts in, "No we're not." She comes in, dressed in slacks and a button up, a scarf holding on for dear life around her neck. "Cristina, I'm coming with you."

"Meredith, you cannot be in that OR," Derek exclaims, setting out two bowls with Cheerios in them and a carton of milk on the kitchen table. Zola and Bailey sit down, fighting over which bowl to take. "It's a conflict of interest. The man is practically your—"

"Richard Webber is _not_ my father."

"He's the closest thing you have to one," Derek says softly.

Meredith frowns. "I am the chief of surgery, Derek. I can't just sit there while…" Her voice trails off, and Cristina steps towards Meredith to place a hand on her arm.

"You won't be just sitting there," Cristina insists. She hands Meredith a coffee mug. "You will be in the gallery as _Meredith Grey, Chief of Surgery_. And the intercom will be right there for you to boss me around."

After a few seconds, Meredith composes her face again, and Cristina gives Derek a reassuring look. "Come on, Zozo, Bailey," Meredith exclaims, slipping on her best-mom hat, "let's put on your shoes. We need to get you to school. Mommy, Daddy and Auntie Cristina have a big day today."

The kids scarf down the rest of their cereal, while Meredith and Derek quietly argue about who's turn it was to bring them to school. In the end, it was decided that Meredith would take Kasey to the hospital daycare, while Derek would drive Zola and Bailey to school.

On the car ride to the hospital, Meredith is hesitant when she asks, "So about last night—"

"Nothing to talk about," Cristina interrupts, fiddling with the passenger seat. "He's _married_ , Mer. He has a wife, and he has a freaking _kid_. And honestly, I expected it, so there's really no need to keep discussing it."

Kasey, strapped in the backseat, coos agreeably as she eats wafer crackers from a little plastic bag. Meredith finds her daughter's eyes in the rearview mirror and sticks her tongue out at her before giving Cristina a frustrated glance. "You miss him," she states, and Cristina doesn't say anything. Last night, after Owen left, Cristina climbed onto Meredith's giant bed, just like old times, and Meredith gave her a brief overview of Owen's life after she left. He's married to Amelia Shepherd, which Cristina saw coming, and two years ago, they had a baby boy named Beau. Those were all of the details Cristina could hear before she pretended to drift to sleep. The next thing she knew, Derek was whispering next to her, insisting that Cristina get the hell out of his bed.

Meredith is right. She misses him. Oh God, did she miss him. She misses his laugh, and the way he thought she was funny even when she wasn't trying to be. She missed the feeling she'd get when she ran into him in the hospital, unexpected, and the way his kisses could make her lose her train of thought. She missed coming home to a home that felt like home.

But she isn't home. Seattle isn't home. Owen isn't her home. He's made somebody else his wife, he's made his own kid, and he's carved out and molded a new home for himself. She can't expect him to rebuild an old bridge that was knocked down for a reason; she can't ask him to take her in.

"You know, Amelia's been spending a lot of time at our house," Meredith says, looking over at Cristina, who is looking out the window. "She just sleeps on our couch at night."

"Yeah well, I kicked Derek out of your bed when Owen and I fought," Cristina pointed out. "Doesn't mean anything."

"I'm just saying."

"I know, Mer," Cristina says, as she watches Meredith pull into the hospital parking lot. It's an early morning, but the slots are packed. As they walk through the doors, Cristina is immediately swept into surgeon-mode by the atmosphere. Meredith wanders off to drop her daughter off at daycare, while Cristina stands in front of the OR board, looking at the top line, which has Richard's surgery and Cristina and Maggie's names next to it.

"Are you nervous?" A voice says beside her.

"You are about the fifth person to ask me that—"

Cristina breaks off when she notices that the surgeon standing beside her is Amelia Shepherd. She's wearing a scrub cap and gown, a little out of breath, so it's obvious that she'd just finished an all night surgery. Her eyes are a piercing green, boring into Cristina's.

"Hi Dr. Shepherd," Cristina says, scraping up a smile.

"It's good to see you again, Dr. Yang."

"Likewise." Cristina clears her throat. "And, um, to answer your question, I'm not nervous. I'm cautious about what can happen in there, but not nervous."

"Good."

They both turn to the OR board, an uncomfortable silence sitting between them.

"So listen—"

"Here's the thing—"

"Oh, you first," Cristina offers.

"I just don't want things to be awkward between us," Amelia explains. Cristina notices that she uses her hands to talk, just like Meredith. And Lexie. And probably Maggie. "Not that you're, like, an awkward person or anything. It's just—Owen told me that you guys used to be married. And I'm not sure what you've heard about me or about us, but it would just be really great if we could eliminate the bad blood and just be friends—"

"It won't be awkward," Cristina says, and she wants to believe it. "Owen and I had a history, but we've both moved on. Plus, you're Mer's sister-in-law, so in some capacity, I'm probably your sister. She's got so many of them."

"Oh, thank God," Amelia says, sighing in relief.

Cristina doesn't know what it is about Amelia, but she's finding it hard to hate her. She wants to hate her; she is predispositioned to have an unreasonable dislike for anyone Owen is with after her. But she doesn't. The discomfort in her chest is not a hate but a flame. A sort of anger. Bitterness.

"Anyway," Amelia declares, "I'd wish you good luck, but I don't think you'll need it. Richard Webber is in good hands."

"Thanks," Cristina says, turning to face her with a small smile. "Well, I better scrub in. It was nice seeing you, Amelia."

After a short and quaint goodbye, Cristina and Amelia separate, and Cristina turns the corner to the scrub room. Thirty minutes early for the surgery, there are no surgeons in the OR quite yet, just scrub nurses setting up for the procedure. Cristina grabs a mask and pulls it behind her ears; she turns on the faucet and mumbles her rhythmic tune for sterilization. She is interrupted when she hears the door open behind her. She expects it to be Meredith, running her mouth about Richard's procedure and all the precautions Cristina needs to take, but she is surprised—but somehow, not as much as she thought she would be—to see Owen.

He is in scrubs, a cap over his head. Part of Cristina wonders if he plans on volunteering to scrub in together.

"Dr. Hunt," she says curtly. "What a coincidence. I just ran into your wife."

Owen's eyes widen, and Cristina curses to herself, not completely understanding why she decided to spill this information out right before surgery.

"Amelia's very nice," Cristina says, but she realizes that Owen can't tell she is smiling underneath her mask. "You guys seem like a good fit."

"I'm not sure what Meredith told you but—"

"She didn't tell me anything," she says hastily, turning on the faucet again to rescrub. "I'm ecstatic for you, Owen."

Even with her back turned to him, she can feel his confused eyes on her. "Cristina, what's going on?"

Cristina stops scrubbing her hands, looking down at the sink. What _is_ going on? How did her one trip to Seattle, to save Richard Webber, turn into an emotional rollercoaster? Owen is still looking at her, and she knows he is expecting her to say something, to be honest. But she didn't owe him that. They didn't owe each other much of anything anymore.

"Is there something you needed, Owen?" Cristina asks, continuing to scrub.

Owen stares at her, disbelieving. He clears his throat, shaking his head. "No," he says, turning around. "Nothing at all."

She cringes as she hears the door slam shut.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**

 **Big disclaimer - the medicalness in this chapter comes from Google and is probably completely wrong.**

 **And wow, thank you so much for all your reviews! It has been exciting for me to develop this story, and it's been great receiving feedback - you guys really motivate me to continue writing. Sending you all lots of gratitude 3**

* * *

Cristina glances at Richard, who is lying on the table, prepped and almost ready. He'd requested to hear Cristina's detailed plan before being put asleep, and as her mentor and someone who will always be the Chief to her, she obliges.

"All right, everybody," she begins, looking at the team of surgeons in front of her. "This machine is called the vRobot. One of my guys in Zurich was able to ship it here last night. It is a minimally invasive alternative to a sternotomy; it will allow us to make very small incisions in Dr. Webber, while still giving us the same range of motion as a typical heart operation. We tested it this morning, and it works like a charm." Cristina steps behind the robotic system, placing her hand proudly on what her hospital has implemented in every OR back in Zurich. "What's going to happen is I'm going to be at the head of the table, and I'll be looking into the screen through a microscope with the robotic controllers in front of me. Dr. Pierce and Dr. Robbins will be in the back, monitoring the same screen projected so that all of you can see what I'm doing as well. Nurses and residents will help me make sure that all of the robotic instruments are safely inside Dr. Webber. If anything should go wrong that I wouldn't easily notice on the screen, you need to let me know. Any questions?"

There are murmurs across the room, curious yet cautious eyes on Cristina and the set-up in front of her. Richard looks around. Surrounding the table is an astounding amount of professionals. Maggie and Arizona stare at Cristina, vertically, from across the table. Ben sits at the edge, getting Richard's anesthesia mask prepared. The two wide-eyed residents stand on either side of Richard's heart, while studiously keeping an eye on his stats and instruments in front of them. In the gallery, Cristina sees Meredith and Alex and Jo and Bailey and Callie and Jackson, their eyes full of tears, but also full of hope.

"You are surrounded by so much love, Dr. Webber," Cristina says to Richard softly, as she nods at Ben to lift the mask over Richard's face. "You will be okay. In a heartbeat, you'll be waking up to us."

* * *

"Fredericks, adjust the robotic knob carefully so I can get better visualization."

The nervous resident takes one of the sensors and shifts it ever so slightly to the left. Cristina stares at the screen, focusing. She takes a frustrated breath. The mass on Webber's heart is smaller than what Cristina has extracted before, but much thicker, heavier.

"It's too quiet in here," she says, guiding the controller and cutting away slowly. "Someone say something."

The doctors and nurses look at each other, urging one another with their eyes to be the first to speak up.

"What you're doing is a very cutting edge surgery, Dr. Yang," Maggie expresses, watching the screen intently. "I mean, I'd love to meet with you after to discuss possible ways we can further incorporate this technology into our ORs."

"That can definitely be arranged, Dr. Pierce," Cristina says. "You should consider visiting Zurich. It would be great to have you on a couple of cases."

"I'd like that."

Cristina squints as she maneuvers the controllers to tackle the side of the mass.

"Did anyone catch the Seahawks game last night?" asks Ben from the side.

"Oh, I would have," Arizona says, turning away from the monitor to face him. She drops her voice low, so that Callie wouldn't hear her from the gallery. "But Callie dropped off Sofia last night in a huff and so I spent half the night trying to convince my daughter that mommy will come back and get her. But she _won't_ because she is selfish and thinks that just because she can get a stupid _date_ on a Friday night means that she can dump her kid with the second best option. So _no_ , I didn't watch the game last night."

There is a pause, as everyone consciously avoids responding to Arizona's confession. Cristina takes a breath and looks up at the gallery to spot Owen coming in and looking down at the procedure. She quickly turns her attention back to the microscope and refuses to think about their earlier conversation.

"Okay, no more talking then," Cristina mutters under the breath. "I forgot how personal this hospital gets."

Hearing this, Maggie laughs. "Oh, it's only gotten worse since you've left."

"I can imagine."

"Dr. Yang," a scrub nurse says, walking in with a cordless phone in her hand. "Dr. Ross is calling from Zurich. He needs to speak with you. He says it's urgent."

Cristina doesn't bat an eye. "Did he say what about?"

"No."

"Is someone dying or about to die?"

The nurse repeats Cristina's question into the receiver. "He says no, but—"

"Then tell Shane I will call him back after my surgery on one of the most respected, experienced general surgeons in this country."

The nurse nods, turning around to exit the operating room.

"Wow, you sound important," Maggie comments, raising a brow.

Cristina laughs. "Running a hospital definitely gives people an impression that you know all the answers."

"Don't you?"

"I like to think I do," Cristina responds. She lifts her head up again, trying to clear her eyes so she can continue staring at the screen. Her eyes meet Owen's in the gallery again. He has his arms crossed, gaze planted straight at her and her movements. He's listening. "But in a split second," she continues, turning her head back to the machine, "the right answer can alter and change into many different right answers, where there isn't always clear-cut choice. And you just need to follow your gut."

Maggie smiles. "Sounds about right to me."

"D-Dr. Yang," the perky blonde resident says apprehensively, "is that a pool of blood on the screen?"

"Damn it," Cristina says, shifting the controls to focus on the left side, where she notices the blood starting to clot. "We need to ligate this vessel before an embolism—"

Cristina breaks off as she steps back and realizes that her eyes are completely blurry. The screen is foggy to her, and she can hardly identify the puzzled faces in front of her. She glances at the clock behind her, wincing as she makes out that she has been at this for seven hours. This happened once, back in Zurich, with one of her patients that need a coronary revascularization. In the middle of surgery, around the five-hour mark, Cristina had to stand up, clear her eyes, before she continued staring into a small screen with a microscope. She is outraged at herself that it hadn't occurred to her sooner that there was a possibility this could happen again.

Slowly, Cristina takes her hand off the controllers and pushes herself back. She rubs her eyes furiously.

"Dr. Yang," she hears Maggie say, "are you all right?"

"I just need a minute," Cristina snaps, standing up and pacing. The OR is quiet, with the exception of Richard's heartbeat being monitored, as they watch Cristina walk from one end of the room to the other with her hands pressed against her eyes.

"Can someone get her some water?" she hears Meredith squeal through the intercom.

"Damn it," Cristina bellows, letting her hands fall to her side, balling her fists. She is panicking. "This is just _perfect_ timing."

Maggie offers, "Just calm down—"

"Calm down?" Cristina yells, glaring at Maggie through smoggy lenses. "Richard Webber is lying on the table, blood clotting faster than you flew through med school. I can't calm down. I can't _see_ anything!"

"Cristina."

She turns around to look up at the gallery. His face is a shadow and he is barely recognizable against the reflection of the glass, but she can still tell it's him.

"Just take a deep breath," she hears him say, his voice remedying, even through the cushion of the intercom. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep, pushing all her thoughts aside. "You can do this, Cristina. You just need to breathe. Let everything else be, and just breathe."

She listens, letting her breath flow in and out, a river course. For what seems like an eternity, but is only a minute, she is standing there, eyes closed, just breathing. She feels her shoulders relaxing, her heart rate slowing to a steady rhythm against her chest.

His voice resurfaces. "Okay, what about now, Cristina? Can you see me?"

She opens her eyes, sighing in relief when she sees Owen, hands pressed against the glass, looking down at her. "Yeah," she says, and he smiles, clear as the bright morning sky. "I do."

"I got water!" cries a resident, who storms inside the OR with a bottle of Poland Spring.

Cristina turns around, rolls her eyes, and takes her seat at the machine again. Luckily the clot is relatively smaller than she thought, and now that she feels at ease, she is confident that she would be able to finish the procedure before it starts to expand.

Two hours pass, and the surgeons use that time to discuss what they plan to have for dinner. Bailey chimes in from the gallery, beckoning at Ben to take her to the new Italian place that opened near Elliott Bay. Arizona slyly mentions that she has romantic plans. And Cristina—well, Cristina planned on going straight to Joe's for a cheeseburger and lots of tequila.

"All right, I'm almost done," Cristina says, using the robot arms to cut the last bit of the mass. The screen lights up, and she grins as she hears each surgeon's sigh of relief. Using the left instrument, Cristina extracts the mass from the small incision and places it onto a sterilized tray.

"You did it," Maggie says happily, clapping along with everyone in the gallery. Cristina finds herself smiling, the feeling of both pride and relief nestling in her chest. _It's over_ , she thinks. She can head back, do the wonderful work she was doing before, and not think about Seattle or Owen or anything complicated. She slides back into the system and frowns when she checks the screen one last time.

"Shit," Cristina swears, staring at the screen with sheer panic. There were clots, and lots of them, forming in various places in Richard's heart, spreading like stains on a piece of worn-out cloth. She presses her hands against the sides of her head and bites her lip to resist letting out a frustrated scream. "I need to close him up now and get him started on anticoagulants."

Maggie agrees. "Be careful, we don't want to risk an embolism. It can travel to his brain and cause a stroke."

"If it hasn't happened already."

Cristina steps away from the machines and walks over to stand next to Richard. She starts to remove the robotic instruments carefully and grabs the suture kit next to her. _Just go with your gut_ , she thinks to herself. Just as she takes another breath, Richard's heart monitor starts going off erratically. Cristina stares at the monitor, almost positive that this is a sign from hell.

"Somebody page Derek Shepherd!"


	5. Chapter 5

Meredith storms into the scrub room, her eyes wide with fury. "What happened in there, Cristina?"

Cristina sighs, putting the wash cloth down and pressing her palm against her temple exasperatingly. After Derek had come in to assist Cristina, they concluded that there was luckily no embolism and no spread to the brain, but just an enormous amount of blood clots—which is likely a side effect from the surgery. Cristina was able to suture Richard's incisions, and the nurses and interns were now bringing him back to his room for post-surgery care. He was, Cristina concluded with much relief, going to be just fine.

"Richard has excessive blood clotting in his heart, probably from the intensity of the surgery and the removal of the mass," Cristina says to Meredith now. "We are putting him on blood thinners as soon as possible, and I'm hoping it will reduce the risk of any other complications."

"I know what's happening with Richard," Meredith responds, agitated. She has her hands on her hips, and with her wardrobe head to toe in chief attire, she looks out of place in a scrub room. "I'm asking about you."

"I'm fine," Cristina says, shaking her head. She turns to exit, for the first time desperately needing to escape an OR. "I need to check on Richard, make sure those idiot residents don't mess up his post-ops."

"Cristina." Meredith grabs her arm. "You couldn't see in there. You're Cristina Yang. You've lasted through a twenty-four-hour surgery, and your eyes just stop working after, what, eight hours? Something is obviously wrong. What happened?"

"I-I don't know, Mer, all right?" Cristina yells, pulling her arm away. "This happened to me once, during an operation in Zurich and—"

"This happened to you once? Cristina, why didn't you get it checked out? You're a freaking _doctor_."

"It went away, okay?" Cristina shouts, looking at Meredith square in the eye. She feels an uncomfortable lump in her throat, threatening. "I had a thing. I couldn't see, but it went away, okay? It's _gone_. It's not coming back. So just _drop it_ , Mer."

Meredith looks at her friend sadly. "It might come back," she says quietly.

But Cristina isn't listening anymore. Instead, she shakes her head, rips off her surgical gown, and disposes it behind her on her way out.

* * *

"Two more please."

After checking in on Richard, who is stabilizing and should wake up in the next twelve hours, Cristina heads straight to Joe's. Now, she is taking two shots at a time, already forgetting where she is, and much to her content, anything about this day.

"You know, Joe," she says, waving her finger at the perplexed bartender, "I used to be a robot. Just like those ones I used today in the OR. I used to be all tough and I rode a pretty badass motorcycle and I was only focused on surgeries and being the best cardiothoracic surgeon there is." Cristina downs two more shots, her head spinning as she sits up straight, or as straight as she can. "And now, I'm this big glob, you know? I'm a mess. I left Seattle thinking that I'm ready to do real hard heart stuff, and I do it, and I come back, and it's just… _shit_ , I am _not_ happy, you know. I'm fucking _miserable_."

"You are also really drunk," Joe comments, taking Cristina's shot glasses and dumping them in the sink. Even inebriated, Cristina can tell she is being cut off from the alcohol supply.

"Oh, you are a party pooper, Joe the bartender. What's your last name again?"

Joe rolls his eyes behind Cristina. Quizzically, she whips around to see Callie, striding towards her with a skeptic expression.

"Callie Torres!" Cristina exclaims with a loopy smile on her face. "What brings you to the divine world of booze?"

"Oh, my god," Callie says, laughing as she takes a seat at the stool next to Cristina. "You are freaking hammered. I haven't seen you this messed up since you hid under an OR table, quit being a surgeon, and sat behind this very table handing us drinks called 'early on-set Alzheimer's'."

"Good times," Cristina says, giving her a thumbs up. "How was your totally super hot date yesterday?"

Callie scrunches up her face. "How do you know about that?"

"Your ex-wife totally made this huge confession before Webber's surgery today about how jealous she is of your extreme happiness."

"God, I hate her."

"You love her," Cristina points out, poking Callie in the shoulder. "That's why you hate her."

"You are oddly philosophical when you're drunk."

"Research shows," Cristina explains, gesturing with her hands, but quickly stopping because it reminds her of Amelia and Meredith's other stupid sisters, including her twisty self, "that alcohol dims down the 'alarm signal' in your brain that tells you not to share your shit. You basically lose interest or care when you're shitfaced."

Callie takes the beer that Joe hands her and raises her eyebrows. "So what," she asks, taking a swig, "are you trying not to care about?"

Cristina swallows, exhaling as she leans her head against the table. "Owen."

"I get that," Callie responds, nodding dolefully. "I mean, Arizona and I can't even look at each other, never mind say one nice word. I think Sofia is going to hate us."

"She won't," Cristina insists, perking up. "Besides, what is she, like four years old?"

"She's seven, loser."

"Oh shit. Yeah, maybe she'll start to hate you."

Callie sighs. "Thanks Cristina. Your drunk insight is quickly fading."

"It's just," Cristina says, aggravated, "he's married, you know? He has a house. He has a baby. He's probably going to have a lot of babies, because he just loves freaking babies so much. And I've got—"

"You've got an amazing career that you should be proud of," Callie finishes for her.

"You know, I dated this guy in Zurich," Cristina begins, reaching over for the beer bottle and scowling as Callie pulls it away. "His name was Gaëtan. Don't worry, I couldn't even pronounce it when I first met him. He was a lawyer, and we had nothing in common, except how much we loved our jobs. We were together for over a year, and one night, he got down on one knee and just… proposed. I freaked the hell out."

Callie twirls the bottle in her hand, listening closely.

"I mean, he had his own law practice, and he had all these crazy hours, same as me. And the sex? It was good, Torres. Like _really_ good. He didn't want kids, he just needed someone to come home to, to be with. And you know, I could have been really happy with him, if I tried. I would have gotten used to the idea of being married again, of being somebody to someone. But I just couldn't do it."

Callie nods, unsure of what to offer, whether to consol with agreement or detach with advice. "He still loves you, you know," she says. "Owen, I mean, not Gaëtan. He mentions you at board meetings, and I always catch him asking Meredith how you're doing. There's just a light in his face, every time you come up in the conversation."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Cristina answers. Her head is spinning less now, clarity on the brim of the glass—pain and all of its friends following close behind, a tsunami tide. "He and I," she continues softly, "were like this unfinished puzzle, you know? Like everything was there—the love and the passion and this epic love story. Except there was this one piece."

"The baby."

"The baby," Cristina agrees, wagging her finger in Callie's face. "And that piece just didn't fit, and neither of us would feel completely finished without it. I mean, we could cut the edges and bend it to make it fit, to finish the damn puzzle, but that would mean that one of us had to let up. One of us has to sacrifice, and let something go, become less of the person we want to be, in order to work. So we just don't. We just end up getting hurt when we do."

"Arizona and I have tried so hard to bend and to make it fit," Callie says, finishing off the rest of her drink. "But we just can't get past certain things. But God, we love each other so much, we just keep coming back and making the same mistakes."

"Aha!" Cristina exclaims enthusiastically. "So you admit you love her!"

"Just when I thought you were sober."

As it reaches close to the middle of the night, the bar is emptying. There is a couple on the far left booth, leaning against each other, and a few older loners, along the bar table. The night is ending, and a bumbling softening of voices fit in between the spaces.

"Hey," Cristina says, her face suddenly brightening. "Do you know where Owen lives?"

"Oh no," Callie says, shaking her head. "You are not going to show up to Owen's house, drunk. That will _not_ end well."

"I just want to talk to him, I promise. I'm not even drunk anymore," Cristina pleads, just as she loses her balance slightly on the stool.

Callie gives her a pointed look. "I would be a really bad friend if I let you go to your ex-husband's house to discuss God-knows-what in the middle of the night."

"You could just say you were drunk when I yell at you tomorrow."

"I had _one_ beer."

"Shhh," Cristina says, putting a finger to her lips. "Come on, Torres. Stop being a party pooper."

Joe shouts resentfully from the kitchen of the bar, "She said the same thing to me an hour ago!"

"Fine," Callie says, grabbing her purse off the stool and signaling for Cristina to follow. "But I'm driving you."

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Again - disclaimer of all medical input in this chapter. All from online medical sources, and probably definitely misused!**

 **Thanks for all your reviews :)**


	6. Chapter 6

As they pull up into a long, smooth driveway, Cristina presses her hands against her temple—a headache as a sure sign that she is sobering up. The first thing she notices is a lot of grass, mountainous heaps of green circling around the white little house. There is a swing set built on the large tree in the front yard.

"This is like freaking little house on the prairie."

Callie laughs. "You sure you want to go inside?"

Cristina looks out the passenger window at the house again. She's curious about Owen's new home, how it compares to their firehouse on Main Street, where it was busy and always full of traffic. But the house is small, and Owen was never one for living in luxury, which makes this visit a little less daunting for her.

"Yes," she says, opening the door. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

As she makes her way to the front door, her shoes get soaked up by the wetness of the grass, and she realizes that it must have rained during Richard's surgery. But the sky is clear now, and there are so many stars. It reminds Cristina, oddly enough, of the plane crash and those nights in the woods. While Arizona prayed, and Meredith and Derek relied on each other for comfort, Cristina found calmness by looking above, at the ceiling of stars draped over them.

As soon as her fingers lift from the doorbell, the sound echoing outside, she wants to turn away, to go back into Callie's car, and drive somewhere else, preferably back to Joe's. Or to a nice bed. But before she can make a run for it, Owen opens the door and stares at Cristina, his eyes coated in disbelief.

"It's my turn to knock on your door late at night unannounced," Cristina says sheepishly.

"Cristina," he says, noticing her tired expression, her alcoholic scent. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she responds quickly. She peeks her head inside, noticing that Owen had been stationed on the couch, with the laptop on the cushion and the TV turned to the CNN. "Are you – is anyone home?"

"Oh no," he stammers. "I mean, I was just working on some research. Do you want to come inside?" Cristina notices that he is a little bouncy on his feet—talking wildly with his hands, asking too many questions. _He's nervous_ , she thinks.

"No, Callie is waiting for me in the car," Cristina says, shaking her head. "I just came to apologize for the way I spoke to you this morning. I meant what I said: You got everything you wanted, and you've got this beautiful house, and I'm happy for you."

He looks at her, his expression unreadable. "Amelia said you've moved on too, and that you look happy," Owen says, so quiet it is almost inaudible. "Are you, Cristina? Are you happy?"

They are interrupted when Callie, God bless her, decides to honk her horn a half dozen times. "I should go," she says quickly, stumbling back.

"Cristina."

"Callie is waiting for me," she says softly. "And I'm leaving tomorrow, after I check on Dr. Webber and—"

"So come in," he says, stepping forward with his hand reached out. Cristina looks at his hand, extending towards her like a natural invitation, and back to his face, which is slightly mortified that they'd come so close to contact. He drops is arm against his side. "It's like four in the morning, Cristina. I can drive you back to the hospital as soon as the sun rises, then you can catch your flight."

Cristina hesitates, but takes a step forward into the warmth of Owen's new world.

* * *

"This is a nice place you have," Cristina says, taking a seat on the dark suede couch, next to where Owen has his laptop perched. She looks around, taking in the marble countertops, the mint blue walls, and the clean white carpet that leads all the way up the stairs.

"Thanks," Owen says, handing Cristina a glass of water and sitting beside her.

"Where's Amelia?"

Owen looks at Cristina, as if debating how to answer this. "She got pulled into an emergency surgery."

"Oh."

"She'll be back in the morning to take Beau—um, our son—to daycare."

"I see," Cristina says, nodding. "How is…um, Beau?"

 _This is so awkward_ , she thinks to herself.

"He's wonderful," Owen says, and she can tell his eyes are brightening. "He just turned two and is _almost_ talking intelligibly. I just put him to bed. He's been having trouble sleeping lately, so I just, you know, stay up with him sometimes to do research. My sleep schedule is all out of whack, since I'm at the hospital until two almost every night."

"Yeah, I know how busy it can get."

"I bet. How's Zurich treating you? I heard you're doing some great work there."

"It's great," she says, grinning. "Everyone I work with is incredibly smart. It's crazy how excited I am to get to do all these front line surgeries. And my God, the research, my heart printing research, is just amazing. We're ready to launch phase one of the trial and—"

Cristina breaks off, noticing that she is rambling on and on, as she tends to do whenever anyone asks about the work she is doing. Maybe it's out of habit, but Cristina believes it's more of the world medicine takes her to, the thrill and trepidation of surgery.

"And?" Owen prompts, looking at her with anticipating eyes.

But that is the thing about him, the condition they share. He could listen to her talk about hearts and surgeries and research all day, the embers in her eyes intense enough to start a fire, and never get bored.

"It's just amazing," she finishes, looking up at him. "I can't believe how lucky I am sometimes to have this opportunity."

"You worked hard for it," Owen says. "You should be proud."

"Thanks."

There is a short silence between them, before Owen asks, "So are you going to tell me what happened to you during Webber's surgery?"

"Not you too." Cristina groans, sitting back against the sofa. "Meredith was on my case about this a few hours ago. I'm fine."

"Your eyes went blurry during surgery, Cristina. You are not fine."

"I will get it checked out… eventually," she says, taking a sip of her water and waving her hand in Owen's face. "Just take a chill pill, dude."

He looks at her, slightly amused, but concerned more than anything. "You should get it checked out before you leave, just take a few scans to make sure everything is okay. I mean, I could ask Amelia… or um, Derek, to take a look."

"Your current wife taking brain scans of your ex-wife, probably making small talk about the weather or something," Cristina says, laughing. "Sounds _mortifying_ , Owen."

Owen is laughing too, nodding his head in agreement, and Cristina can't help but notice how good this feels. That they are laughing and talking, how easy this conversation is. She can't help but notice how much she misses it.

"I miss you," Owen says suddenly, and for a second, she thinks he is reading her thoughts. But then he continues, as she stares at him wide-eyed. "I just… I miss _this_."

"Owen—"

"You don't have to say anything," he tells her, and he puts his hand on top of hers. His touch is electrifying. "I just wanted to say it."

Cristina smiles, and reaches over with her free arm, so that their hands are stacked against each other. Knuckles brushed up on top of knuckles. Fingers filling the in-betweens. "Maybe it wasn't a greatest idea coming here."

"It was," he insists. "It's good to know that you're doing well."

"For the record," she says, squeezing his hand. "I miss you too."

A few short minutes later, as the sun forewarns its arrival, Cristina and Owen fall asleep to the TV in the living room. Her head is on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined, and their light snores fill up an empty room. It is the best sleep Cristina has gotten in a while.

* * *

Cristina startles, jerking awake from the sound of a baby crying. She isn't sure where she is when she opens her eyes. Part of her expects to see her bedroom in Zurich, with cream-colored walls surrounding and sweeping views of the city out the window to her right. Another part of her expects to wake up in an on-call room, her back aching from the springy beds.

But what she doesn't expect is wake up to a smell of coffee brewing, the warmth of a blanket that's thrown over her on a comfy couch, and Owen trying to hush his wailing son, who is on the high chair, in the kitchen.

"Sorry," Owen says, noticing as Cristina sits up with sleepy eyes. "He's usually not this cranky in the morning."

"It's okay," she says, wincing at how crackly her voice sounds. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine, he's just tired and hungry," he responds, grabbing the warmed milk out of the microwave. "Come on, baby. Beau, say _'Hi Cristina!'_ " Beau ignores this, continuing to cry until Owen sticks the bottle against his mouth. Finally quiet, Beau holds his bottle, sucking, and looks at Cristina with curious, teary eyes, as if he is only now noticing a stranger in his home. Cristina gives him a grin and a little wave.

"He looks like you," she tells Owen, and she isn't lying. Beau has clusters of blonde hair, the same baby blue eyes, beaming, as he gives Cristina a toothy smile. She is pretty sure he is an exact replica of Owen when he was a kid.

"I made coffee," he tells her, and she is happy to know that he still remembers coffee is the first thing she needs in the morning. She watches as he maneuvers around the kitchen, in a button-up and slacks, to pour coffee into two Scooby-Doo mugs. He hands Cristina the coffee, black, and walks over to where his son is, pulling back Beau's hair. "As soon as he finishes his milk, we can all head to the hospital."

"Oh," she says, surprised. "Amelia isn't taking him?"

"Change of plans," he replies nonchalantly. "You okay with that?"

"Oh, of course."

But the truth is, Cristina is skeptical. It's been more than forty-eight hours since she's been in Seattle, and she hasn't seen Owen and Amelia, together. Of course, she was stuck in surgery all day yesterday. And of course, it isn't uncommon for surgeons to spend nights apart, especially when they are pulled into emergency surgeries and forced to work a night shift. But still, it seems strange to Cristina that, not only was she invited to stay at her ex-husband's place in the middle of the night, but also that his wife hadn't been home for twenty-four hours. Cristina shakes this off. She knows that she is just over-thinking this, that she is letting hope substitute in for doubt, that she's creating a crease in a door that doesn't open.

But _still_.

When Beau finishes his bottle, and Cristina freshens up in Owen's guest bathroom, they climb into Owen's same old pick-up truck, parked in the garage. As soon as Beau is swaddled into his car seat, his eyes start to close.

"I can't believe you still have this thing."

Owen laughs, as he puts the car in reverse and backs out of the driveway. "Hey, I keep it clean and get it inspected every year. It is in good shape. How many cars have you owned in the last four years?"

"That's not fair," Cristina argues, scowling. "Swiss cars are known to break down easily."

"How many?" Owen prompts, his face as serious as he can draft.

Cristina looks down, embarrassed. "Seven."

" _Seven?_ " Owen says incredulously, breaking the car and looking over at Cristina. Beau stirs in the backseat.

"Will you _shut up_?" Cristina seethes under the breath, as Owen steps on the gas pedal again. "You're going to wake up your kid, and then he'll start crying again."

But Owen doesn't lower his voice or the level of bewilderment in it. "Seriously? How do you own _seven_ cars in four years?"

"You make bank when you own a hospital."

He stares at her blankly.

"I'm kidding… sort of," she says, waving him off. "Look, they just weren't a good fit. I needed some change in my life. I had a lot of fancy Swiss options to choose from. Europeans like to roll with the trends, and I rolled, Owen."

"Seven times?"

"Seven times, _bitch._ "

"Hey," he says, nodding towards sleeping Beau.

"Oops, sorry," she responds, covering her mouth, but he is laughing along with her. As they pull up to the Grey Sloan Memorial's parking lot, Cristina smiles to herself, content that this is the last conversation she'll have with Owen. It's light and carefree, and she wants to remember it this way.

"So listen," Owen says, sliding into a parking slot and putting the truck on park. "I wasn't being completely honest. And I like to think that, after all that you and I have been through, that we can still be honest with each other."

 _Oh no_ , she thinks, and she wonders if she wants to hear this, if her heart is capable of enduring any more honesty, of holding any more truth.

"So the truth is, Amelia wasn't in an emergency surgery last night," he says slowly. "I don't actually know where she was. And she wasn't supposed to pick up Beau this morning, because it's my turn to take him daycare."

Cristina blinks, confused. "I'm not following."

"Amelia and I are separated," he explains, and for a moment, Cristina is convinced that her heart is going to fly out from her chest. "She's been living in an apartment downtown for a few months now. After Beau was born, we were just fighting a _lot_ , and we just weren't working anymore, so we—"

"Stop talking," Cristina shouts, fumbling with her seatbelt. Her hand grips the car door, ready to bolt. "Why the hell are you telling me this _now_ , Owen?"

Owen looks at her, stumbles over his words. "I-I don't know. You were always the first person I wanted to tell anything to. I just… I don't know, Cristina."

"It's been four years," she says, that same, annoying lump forming in her throat. This time, though, she is almost sure she is going to cry. "I'm not the same person, and you're not the same person. You're still married, Owen. You have a kid together. You can't just throw all that away over—"

She breaks off, not knowing how to close up, how to suture this speech, how to make her heart steady this rhythm.

"I'm not throwing anything away," Owen says.

She has a flashback of all the fights she's had with him—about having a baby, about their life and their future, visions that clash like two cars sliding on a highway. But things are much different now, with different circumstances; the roads have diverged. This isn't the same fight anymore.

"I just…" he starts, but stops abruptly. He starts again. "I just can't help but think that there is a reason you came, at this time, when _everything_ is falling apart. It's not just coincidence. Not to me."

"I can't do this," Cristina says, opening the car door and scrambling out of it.

"Cristina, we're just talking—"

"We are _not_ just talking," she says, throwing her hands up, exasperated. She can feel the tears stinging her eyes. "We're a puzzle, Owen," she says, thinking of last night in the bar, her conversation with Callie. "We're a puzzle, and there's a missing piece, and it just doesn't fit, no matter how hard we try to force it. You've got your life together, full speed ahead, and I've got mine. Go back to your wife, Owen. She needs you, and you need her, and Beau needs the both of you. Maybe we're different now, our lives certainly are, but that one piece… hasn't changed."

"Cristina, come on. Let's just—"

"I came to save Richard Webber's life, and I've done that," she tells him, pulling her bag over her shoulder and looking towards the hospital, then back at Owen. "I'm leaving tonight. And that's not going to change, either."

She slams the car door shut and heads towards the hospital doors, refusing to look back to see if he follows after her. He doesn't.

* * *

 **A/N: Definitely a tough chapter to write!**

 **All rights to Shonda & ABC. Enjoy, and thanks again for the reviews!**


	7. Chapter 7

When Cristina is in the hospital, she finds Richard in his room, sitting up and fighting off nurses who are urging to take his temperature. Watching, Cristina smiles, but before she can say anything, an irritated voice echoes in her ear from behind.

"Honestly, Richard," Catherine Avery says, walking past Cristina with a glass of water in her hand. She sets it down on the table next to him. "Won't you just let these poor nurses take your temperature? You've been awake for less than an hour. Do what's good for you."

Catherine smoothes his scalp with her hand and kisses his forehead. Cristina can't help but frown in annoyance. She was hoping to be able to talk to Richard alone. And truthfully, Cristina just really didn't want to spend her last few hours in Seattle with happy couples surrounding her.

"I've got it from here," Cristina says, taking the thermometer from one of the nurse's hand. They scram when they hear her voice, snickering in gossipy whispers. "How are you feeling, Dr. Webber?"

Richard looks up and gives Cristina a tired but warm smile. "Feeling better," he says to her.

Catherine eyes Cristina suspiciously. "Lots of complications in the surgery, Dr. Yang."

"He had a very unstable heart," Cristina tells her, giving Catherine a hard look. While Cristina feels guilty for a lot of things that happened in her two days in Seattle, she does not have any remorse for anything regarding Dr. Webber's surgery. She knows she'd made a solid decision doing the robotic surgery, as well as how she handled other intricacies in the OR. "Complications did occur, but they were resolved. Dr. Shepherd followed up with MRIs on Richard's brain, and everything looks clean." She turns to Dr. Webber and ignores Catherine's disbelieving stare. "Dr. Webber, you're a fighter, you know that? We're going to keep you in here for at least a week, making sure that your heart stabilizes, and that there are no further complications. I will be catching a flight back to Zurich tonight, so Dr. Pierce will handle all of your post-ops, so give her a page if you need anything. And then hopefully after a week, we can send you home to recover there. I know you're itching to get back into an OR."

Richard nods, as Catherine squeezes his hand. After checking Richard's temperature—only a little fever—and making sure he was settled and comfortable, Cristina leaves the room and checks her phone, immediately flinching at the amount of missed calls she has. There is one from Owen, which she plans on ignoring, seven from Shane Ross, and fifteen from Meredith.

Sighing, she pulls the phone to her ear, but immediately holds it back when she hears Meredith's screech at the other end. "I thought you _died_ ," she seethes. "Don't you ever check your damn phone?"

"Sorry," Cristina says unapologetically. "I went out to the bar. I got a little drunk."

"What?"

"Did you know that Owen and Amelia are separated?"

" _What?_ "

"I guess not."

" _Cristina, what did you do?_ "

She opens her mouth to explain, although she isn't quite sure where to start, but suddenly someone sneaks behind her to snake her arm and drag her across her hallway.

"Meredith told me to give you a head C.T.," Derek says, as if this is an explanation, pulling a very disgruntled Cristina across the ER wing towards radiology.

"Oh, for the love of God," Cristina huffs, but obliges to be hauled, quite forcefully much to her dismay. "McDreamy, I told your wife yesterday. I don't need one. I'll go back to Zurich, where I have a ton of professionally trained doctors to be at my beck and call."

"Who are you talking to?" Meredith says at her ear, and Cristina remembers that she is still on the line. "Is that Derek? Tell him to get you that C.T. right now."

"Goodbye, Mer."

"Cristina, listen to me, don't you dare hang up the phone—"

Cristina hangs up, glaring at Derek with drained eyes. Not lightly, he shoves Cristina into an imaging room for CAT scans. Before Cristina can make a quick escape, though, she notes that she and Derek aren't the only ones in the room. Instead, Amelia sits in front of the machine, slightly startled when she sees Cristina and Derek enter the room in a less than peaceful manner.

"Unfortunately, Cristina," Derek starts, avoiding her gaze, "I need to do a craniotomy on my patient, a very old lady with very adorable grandchildren, so I can't be here—"

"Of course you can't," Cristina says under her breath, but really, she wants to scream at Derek, _Are you fucking_ kidding _me?_

"—but Amelia is your second best option."

"Oh please," Amelia says, rolling her eyes. To Cristina, she says, "Even after four years, he still can't get used to me running _his_ neuro department."

"Let's just do this," Cristina says, grinding her teeth. When Derek leaves the room—not quite dodging Cristina's you-watch-out death glare—she takes off her watch, stud earrings and shoes, and climbs onto the CT examination table. The surface is cold and hard against her back, and for a moment, all Cristina wants to do is close her eyes and access the world of oblivion that is sleep.

Amelia's voice chimes into the room, echoic, a wavelength of static. "All right, Dr. Yang. Try not to move."

Cristina holds her breath, as the scan swoops around her body, over her head. It's easy to tell your patients that they'll be fine, to stay still as a loud machine starts waving over you. _It'll be over in a second._ And Cristina is a brave person—she's endured more than an average person, suffered and lost far more than she would ever recommend. But there is a sort of vulnerability when she is lying on this table, motionless, that is utterly unnerving to her.

As if she is sensing this, Amelia asks, "Cristina? Are you all right? Your scans are a little shaky. We're going to have to do it one more time."

Cristina swallows, exhaling. "Run it again, Dr. Shepherd."

"Okay." With a push of a button, Cristina hears the machine whirling over her body again. "You know," she hears Amelia say through the microphone. "I hate these things too. I'm a freaking neurosurgeon, you know? And I can't stand the thing that gives me all the answers and makes me look like a genius. How stupid is that?"

Cristina tries not to groan, wondering why Amelia would ask her questions when she is unable to move, to respond, to tell her to shut up.

"Owen talks about you a lot," Amelia says, just matter-of-factly, as if this is just normal information you spill out on a daily. Cristina hasn't had many conversations with Amelia, but the one thing she knows for sure is that the woman tends to blab under nervous situations. Which is something else that's foreign to her—when Cristina is nervous, she runs, without a word to anyone. "I mean, I think he tries not to, because it used to bother me. It still bothers me a little, but not anymore really."

Amelia pushes a few more buttons, and the beeping of the machine picks up speed as it continues spinning around Cristina's head.

"And it wasn't anything big that he said about you that sticks to mind," Amelia continues, as Cristina silently wishes she would stop talking. "Just stuff about your surgical skill, and all your Harper Avery nominations, and every time we'd come across anything remotely to fire, he'd bring up the fact that you guys lived in that firehouse on Main. Oh, and he explained the concept of 'my person' to me, but I actually already knew what that meant. And during a few fights, he did call me Cristina…

"Where the hell was I going with this? Oh right," Amelia exclaims, hardly bothered as she switches the machine off. Cristina lets out the breath she's been holding and sits up, her eyes meeting Amelia's through the glass. "My point is that Owen and I are separated. And you probably already know this—God knows gossip travels around here like flies. We fought a lot, and I started drinking again, and even when I got sober for the third time in my life, and even when we had the most beautiful son, who is just my heart and soul in my world, we still kept fighting."

"Amelia," Cristina says, but she realizes Amelia can't hear her in the next room without a microphone.

"I'm not telling you this because I want to find reasons for you to go back to my husband," Amelia explains. "Because I don't want that. I mean, I fell in love with him. I fell in love with him _hard_ —and I still love him. I love the baby we made together. I love that he can make me laugh, that he knows exactly how I'm feeling just by looking at me. I love every part of him, even the parts that I hate, like when he forgets to put the cap on the milk before throwing it in the fridge. Or when he blames himself for things that shouldn't even matter in the first place."

Cristina smiles knowingly.

"And he loves me, too. I know he does, because he is a good man. But you know, he fell in love with you too, maybe even harder than I fell for him. He never stopped loving you, Cristina. I saw it all the time, and I ignored it _all_ the time." Amelia shrugs, as if this is helpless, as if it is something she can't control. "But I can't ignore it anymore. I won't."

Slowly, Cristina stands up and pads over to the exit of the screening room to face Amelia. "You are his wife," she says to Amelia, her voice almost unfamiliar to her, the words she is saying—the words she knows are right to say, but she can't believe they're right because they feel confusing and overwhelming and just _wrong_ —incomprehensible. "He can love me all he want, but you're the one who is married to him. You're the one he chose. You're the one who gave him _everything_ he wanted."

"Not everything," Amelia says quietly. She presses a few buttons, sending the final scans to print. "I don't know what you and Owen had, and I may never understand it, but I know that it's not something you can just shake off, even if it's been four years." Amelia takes a deep breath. "Owen and I are done, Cristina. We have been for a while now. I know you're leaving, and that you don't live here anymore, and I'm not really sure why I'm telling you this, but I just thought you should know," she finishes, and while Cristina sees the sadness in her eyes, she also sees a bit of relief. A cast of rain showers. A renewal. She knows the feeling all too well.

"Amelia," Cristina says softly, not sure what to say.

"I sent your scans to the front," Amelia tells her, and it surprises Cristina when she reaches out to touch her shoulder, a gesture of reassurance that she expected to come from Meredith or Callie, but certainly not from her ex-husband's future ex-wife—or something. "You can pick it up in twenty minutes. I'm due in the OR." Carefully, Amelia pushes herself out of the rolling chair and heads past Cristina for the door.

"Amelia?" Cristina says. Amelia turns around, looking at Cristina with a brow raised. "Thank you."

Amelia nods, before leaving Cristina standing there, barefoot, in a pool of combating thoughts.

* * *

"What?" growls Cristina at her phone, as she makes her way towards the front desk to grab her scans, which she intends to rip into a million pieces before her flight in two hours.

"I call you like a ten times," Shane says, his frustration evident.

"You aren't the only one, Sharkie," she tells him. "What do you want? Did you kill any of my patients yet?"

"Your patients are fine. The reason I'm calling is—"

Cristina stops listening when Meredith, fuming so hard that Cristina can picture steam coming out of her ears, comes behind her to grab her arm.

"Okay, you and Derek need to seriously stop acting like I'm a body bag you need to dispose before the police catch you," Cristina says tiredly.

"Funny you mention body bags since you're going to become a dead person in the next fifteen minutes if you don't tell me what the hell is up with you," Meredith snaps, swinging her arm around so that Cristina is facing her. It's obvious that Meredith had just come from a long meeting, dressed in business clothes, and a recognizably irritable voice.

"Dr. Yang," Shane says urgently from the phone.

"Not now, Shane."

"I just got an update from Callie," Meredith says, hardly phased of Cristina's phone conversation. "First, you refuse to get a CT last night like I told you to. Then, you go and get wasted, and then pass out at your ex-husband's place, all without telling me?"

"It wasn't like that," Cristina yells. "Okay, maybe the not telling you part. And the drunk part. But I didn't pass out at Owen's like a drunk sorority girl. We talked a lot, and—"

"Dr. Yang!" At this point, Shane is screaming through the receiver, and Cristina instinctively pulls the phone closer to her ear. "Dr. Wendy Crawford from UCLA called. They got approval from the FDA for you to kickstart your heart printing research at their university hospital. They want to buy, like, a hundred printers from us. We can start expanding phase one of the trial to the U.S.—"

"What?" Cristina whispers, her eyes widening.

Meredith grits her teeth. "Cristina—"

But Cristina holds up a hand to Meredith listens in close to Shane. "You didn't catch your flight back to Zurich yet, did you? I set up a meeting tonight with Dr. Crawford, and if Dr. Webber is doing fine, you can fly in to meet with her. If we're lucky, we'll be able to bankroll this research there…it could mean milestones for this project."

"Milestones," Cristina repeats.

"What's going on?" Meredith asks. Cristina fills her in briefly, and in an instant, Meredith drops all her anger about the previous topics she was ranting about and smiles wide-eyed at her best friend. Cristina is already lost in the vision—expansion of this research, to be able to implement this trial in places other than where she was, is a circling goal. The thrill of it all makes her forget everythingabout this day, as she realizes again how much surgery can heal a heart, in more ways than one.

"Shane," Cristina says. "Tell Dr. Crawford I'll take the next flight from Seattle. I'll be there soon."

* * *

 **A/N: For the record, I really love Amelia. Her character and storyline are mesmerizing; Caterina is an amazing actress. I wanted to reflect a realistic situation between Cristina and Amelia, if Cristina had returned to Seattle four years later. I don't think there would be a cat fight or anything ill-mannered, since it's unlike either of them. I do believe that Owen is capable of loving Amelia, of falling in love with her and creating this big life that he's dreamed of, but I also believe that Cristina and Owen's love story is a deep love that you can't shake off or get rid of. These characters are drawn to each other, even if the situation is inconvenient, and that's what I wanted to get at with this chapter.**

 **ANYWAY, spiel over. None of these characters belong to me - only the brilliant Shonda Rhimes. Thanks for the reviews!**


	8. Chapter 8

Cristina stares out the window, watching as the airplane lifts itself through the marshmallow clouds. The California sky that she was under, just hours before, reminded her of home, of when she was a little kid running in fields of green toward her father. Of lilacs and mansions and her Beverly Hills dream of a childhood. Of her darker days, colored in car accidents and metallic blood, before she decided she wanted something better, before she wanted something whole.

She smiles at the thought of this past, which surprises her, because at one point—okay, many points—she found herself desperately wanting to escape it.

But she knows it's because these thoughts appear as a form of distraction. As Cristina sits back, wondering why she didn't pick up a bottle of alcohol before she boarded the flight, she realizes she has a big decision to make.

Dr. Wendy Crawford was a small, older woman, possibly the most humorless person Cristina had ever shook hands with. Throughout their entire time together—which was all of two hours—Cristina wanted to either bolt out of the door, or laugh herself silly at the pure sternness of their conversation. But as soon as Wendy opened her mouth to discuss what her department's offer to Cristina was, it was dead silent for at least a full minute.

" _Five million dollars?_ " Cristina had clarified, gulping as she reached for the water in front of her. She needed something to clear her head, to calm her down and make her believe that this was real life, a pinch of pain to get rid of all the numbing ecstasy that surged in her veins. "You're offering me, I mean, my hospital… 5 million dollars to do research?"

Wendy stared at her from across the table with a flat, although not entirely impatient, expression. "Dr. Yang, my team and I are very serious about the work you are doing overseas. It would be a great opportunity for you to expand some of that work to the west coast. We have very capable hands at the UCLA Cardiothoracic Department, and we believe that we'll be able to take your research to the next level—with you running the implementation, of course."

Before they went to Wendy's office, Cristina was taken on a grand tour of the entire hospital facility by a bunch of people wearing their bragging rights stickers against their forehead. It's hard to impress Cristina, but she was astounded by the level of forward thinking and innovation she saw. They didn't have just a wing for cardio research, but an entire building designed just for cardiothoracic surgery, with an influx of ideas and projects coming in from all over the world. It was clear they want to make headway, and Cristina felt more than a little compelled to help them do so.

"If you decide to work with us," Wendy had continued, mentally noting Cristina's state of shock, "we'll have to set up getting printers shipped to us. We'll most likely want you travel back and forth, at least for a little bit, so that we can simultaneously run the trial. We'd also like to request that you bring a few members of your team who can train those on our side so we can all get up to speed with the research. Many of us have heard your talks online, so we're all relatively knowledgeable about the research already, but training would definitely need to be compensated."

She was there—she was on the verge of opening her mouth to say yes, to accept the offer. But something gnawed at her, this aching feeling that this was a bad decision, that she was going to regret making her life nomadic, unstationary. Cristina is used to being ambitious, to thinking like a robot, to caring about her career and only the next step. Just like she told Joe the bartender. But this insane, earth shattering offer, along with the possibility of being in Seattle—and everything in it—more often, scared her to death. Things that she would have taken in a heartbeat suddenly needed second thoughts, more consideration.

 _Just follow your gut_ , she'd told Maggie in the OR, with Richard lying exposed on the table. For the first time in a long time, as Cristina gazed at Wendy dazedly, she had no idea what her gut was telling her.

"I need to think about it," Cristina told Wendy, standing up from her chair and getting ready to head for the door.

Wendy's face had been appalled to say the least, which was the most expression Cristina had seen plastered on it. "Dr. Yang… with all due respect, this is a once in a lifetime offer."

"I know," Cristina told her. "I understand, Dr. Crawford, that this is an amazing opportunity. And you might think I'm a fool for even thinking twice about it. But I need time. Can I call you back in twenty-four hours?" Begrudgingly, Wendy agreed to wait for Cristina's call within the next twenty-four hours before pulling the offer.

As much as it surprises her, Cristina now finds herself strapped in an airplane seat, holding her breath as it soars through the air towards Seattle. She doesn't know why she is going back, when she could easily return to her hospital in Zurich, ask them what they thought of UCLA's offer, and make an executive decision. She'd been gone long enough; she couldn't imagine what's happened since she left. She'd already given her goodbyes to Meredith, to Alex, who didn't hesitate to bring up her absence at his wedding once more. She knew Richard was healing, in the arms of who he wanted to be with most.

Years ago, logic and reasoning, the facts and hard evidence—the underlying horizon that is her instinct, her gut—would have been enough for Cristina to do what she needed to do.

But she can't help but think of the roads that have formed, and little white houses with play-sets in the front yard, and driving the same car for almost a decade. She can't stop thinking of Amelia, of Owen, and the missing puzzle piece. She can't help but wonder if leaving is still the best ending. For him. For her.

 _Just follow your gut._

Cristina closes her eyes, trying to center herself, to find the key to a heart that has been broken for sometime now.

* * *

The first thing Cristina sees when she steps back into Grey Sloan Memorial hospital is Zola sitting on the front desk, with a flock of nurses surrounding her and making comical faces at the seven-year old. Zola, however, doesn't look amused until she turns around to see Cristina walking towards her.

"Aunt Cristina!" she squeals, hopping off the desk and running to give Cristina a tight hug. "What are you doing back here?"

Cristina lifts Zola into her arms, wincing slightly as she realizes she isn't as light as a feather anymore. "I'm here to find your mommy. You have any idea where she is?"

Zola shrugs. "Probably in a meeting."

"Let's go find her."

After Cristina and Zola do an extensive search of the hospital, including the public bathroom on the second floor—which Zola said she was "totally positive" they would find Meredith in—they finally spot her coming out of the OR in surgical cover-up. She has a relieved smile on her face, and Cristina knows it's been a while since Meredith has had the opportunity to scrub in.

"Mommy!" Zola shouts, letting go of Cristina's hand to run toward Meredith.

"What the—?" As Zola wraps her arms around her legs, Meredith looks at Cristina, dumbfounded.

"I couldn't accept the job offer," Cristina tells her.

"You're kidding."

They are standing on opposite sides of the hallway, shouting over the noise of busy surgeons stumbling out of the surgeries and the rush of families waiting to hear comforting words.

"They were going to give me five million dollars, Mer. This research was finally going to kickstart, and I had an acceptance ready," Cristina says, pulling her hair back with her hand. "I was ready to say it…then I couldn't."

"That's pathetic," Meredith tells her.

"What's wrong with me?" Cristina says, and she's not sure whether she is asking Meredith or herself. She can feel that lump in her throat, and for a second, Cristina just wants to drop her bags, bend down, and completely lose it. But she holds it together.

"Nothing is wrong with you," Meredith says to her. "Now come over here so I can tell you how pathetic you are."

Cristina hesitates for a second, but eventually, she strolls towards Meredith, who puts an arm around her and leads her down the hall. She leans her head on Meredith's shoulder and gives Zola a smile, who is trying to copy her, except she's only able to press her head against Meredith's hip.

Cristina isn't entirely sure where they are heading, but at least for once, she feels like she is home.

* * *

"Your scans are completely clear," Derek says, holding up images of Cristina's brain under the lights of the hospital ceiling.

"Told you," Cristina snaps at Meredith, who shrugs from the other side of the exam room as she smoothes back Zola's hair. After a few rounds of walking around the hospital, Meredith had dragged her into an exam room to follow up with the brain scans, as well as to run a few blood tests.

"You've had this before, you said?"

"Briefly," says Cristina, flopping down on the exam table. "My eyes were blurry during a surgery in Zurich, but that only lasted for two minutes."

Derek rubs his chin. "Okay. Have you been dizzy at all, having spells of vertigo?"

"Uh, no."

"Fatigued?"

"Well, I've been moving around a lot, so yes."

"What are you eating these days?"

"Leave the heart questions up to me, Derek. It doesn't suit your hair."

"Cristina."

"In the last twenty-four hours," Cristina admits grouchily, "I've only had a cheeseburger, some chips, and at least a quart of alcohol."

"You know, for a cardio surgeon, you really don't eat what's good for your heart."

"I don't do a lot of stuff that's good for my heart," Cristina grumbles half-heartedly. She eases back on the exam table and puts her hands under the head, watching as Meredith plays patty-cake with Zola.

After a few seconds of quiet, they are all startled—including Zola, who lets out a yelp—as the door swings up to reveal a very disoriented Owen with ultrasound scans of a very inflamed gall bladder in his hands. He looks at all the faces in the room, his eyes dilating as he notices Cristina, lying back on the exam table. His hair is messy and his eyes are heavy, with dark bags underneath, a sign that he'd probably just woken up, or didn't sleep much at all.

He trips over his words and he murmurs, "Cristina, what are you…? I-I thought you left."

"I took a detour," Cristina responds simply, glancing alarmingly at Meredith, who takes this as a cue to leave, as she gestures Derek towards the door.

"So the good news is that your brain scans are clean," Derek tells Cristina, setting her CT scans on the counter beside her. "The bad news is that we don't know what's wrong, so we're waiting for your blood test results, which should be ready in a few minutes. I'll come back then."

Cristina nods, watching as the McDreamys scurry out the door with a reluctant Zola, who is just as curious as the rest of them, in toe. At first, Owen stands there, with the scans in his arms, wordless as he looks at Cristina. It isn't until they are sitting in moments of complete silence that she realizes she needs to be the one to speak first.

"I got offered five million dollars from some rich lady in L.A.," she says.

Owen raises his eyebrows, his back against the wall on the other side of the room. Scans still in his arms. "What?"

"She wants to fund my research on printing functional human hearts. This rich lady wants to buy a hundred printers and have her team help me run the first trial," she explains, ignoring that fact that his eyes bug out at least half way out of its socket. "That's why I'm back in Seattle. I went to L.A. and I found myself coming back here."

"Cristina, that's great," he says, his face painted with enthusiasm. "I'm so happy for you…for your hospital. I mean, you must be so proud."

She nods, as he takes a few steps toward her. He puts the gall bladder scans down, inching so that he is standing right beside her, a doctor looking over his patient.

"So Derek says there's something wrong with your heart," he says. It isn't a question, but a statement, a declaration.

"Derek doesn't know what he's talking about," Cristina responds, sitting up on the exam chair. She knows where this conversation is going, and she isn't ready to indulge it.

"Well, let me take a look."

She looks up, surprised, and slightly mortified, to see him pull out the stethoscope in his lab coat pocket. "No," she protests. "Absolutely not."

"You're being ridiculous," Owen says, shaking his head. "While you're waiting for your other tests, just—"

She puts up a hand as he sticks the eartips on either side. "You are _not_ my doctor."

"Cristina, for God's sakes," he mutters, frustrated as he throws his arms in the air, letting the stethoscope hang from his ears. "No one can ever be your doctor. You want to know why? Because you don't let _anyone_ take care of you."

She looks at him with her mouth agape, puzzled by his sudden annoyance with her. "Fine," she says, swinging her feet back onto the exam table and looking in front of her, instead of into his icy blue eyes. "You want to be my doctor? Go ahead. Examine me."

Sighing, Owen shoots her a defeated glance before he places the diaphragm of the stethoscope on her chest, listening closely. As she notices how close his hands are to her chest, the way his gaze roams across her body that's sprawled onto the table, and her own heart beating rapidly, which he could surely hear—Cristina feels heated up in a differently way entirely. "Sit up and turn around," Owen instructs, his voice still slightly annoyed. Peeved at his irritable manner, Cristina huffs into a sitting position and swings her legs across the table so that her back is faced to him. _Where the hell is Derek?_ she thinks.

He presses the diaphragm, cold and hard, on her back, and it is silent for a little before Cristina says defensively, "I do let people take care of me."

"Could have fooled me," he says, moving the stethoscope to the top right of her back, just under her shoulder.

"And how would you know?"

"Meredith asked you to get your brain scanned. Twice. Which you refused. Then Derek had to practically drag you by the ear to get these scans done, and yet again, you were less than compliant. And now, here I am, finding that the only way to make you sit still is to get mad about it."

Cristina snorts audibly. "Aren't you the secret spy. Where'd you get all that info? Your soon-to-be ex-wife?" She regrets it the moment it escapes her mouth. Amelia is the last thing Cristina wants to talk about.

"Amelia and I only talk when she picks up Beau or vice versa," Owen says openly, pushing his hand on Cristina's lower back so that she sits up straighter. "Our conversations are amicable, but they're rarely about you."

 _Ouch._

"I have other sources," he says simply.

"Like?"

She could feel his pointed glare against her back, but she knew that if she asked, he would give her an honest answer. But even she isn't prepared when he opens his mouth to tell her that he'd received knowledge of her whereabouts from Cristina's goddaughter.

"What?" She bursts out laughing, turning her head to look at Owen, who isn't angry anymore but rather sheepish. "You pulled evidence from a seven-year-old?"

"She offered it to me," he clarifies. "She was telling everyone at the front desk about her mom and dad's late night conversations. It's how most of Meredith and Derek's drama gets around the hospital."

"That's my girl," she says, chuckling as she imagines Zola, seated on the front desk, blabbing everyone's secrets in the hospital—a surgeon's daughter's typical after-school activity.

Owen furrows his eyebrows. "Turn around," he tells her. "I can't hear anything when you're talking."

"Jeez, all right," she says, deciding that she shouldn't respond with something snarky if she wants to get this over with.

"Take deep breaths, Cristina."

She pulls her legs against her chest, closing her eyes as Owen moves the stethoscope across her back. His hand is warm on her shoulder, his fingers pressing the exposed skin on her neck, keeping her still. As her slow breathing is the only sound filling this room, she finds herself relaxing for the first time since she's arrived in Seattle. She wasn't able to when she was operating on Richard, or when she was walking around the hospital secretly hoping she would run into Owen, or even when she was alone on the airplane—because let's be real, she would never feel entirely relaxed on a flight to _anywhere_.

But as Cristina feels the motion of her breath running through her body, out of her nostrils, into the air between them, her shoulders weigh down on her. Her hands start to unclench; her jaw loosens. As much as she is content, she is heavy, like she is juggling a building above her head that's threatening to collapse against her. Suddenly, she feels everything.

Owen's grip on her shoulder tightens, and his hand feels enormous against her body. "Cristina?" She suddenly finds herself shaking, unable to stay still. She realizes that she is sobbing—at a point where she can't stop, even if she wanted to. She hears him put down the stethoscope and walk over to the other side of the exam table, so that he sitting next to her, looking right at her. "Hey, come on," he says quietly, and Cristina believes there will never be anything more soothing to her than the sound of his voice. "Talk to me."

"I-I wanted to say no," she blurts, glancing at him tearfully, "to the offer at UCLA. As much as I wanted to say yes, I wanted to say no."

"Cristina."

He doesn't ask why. He doesn't ask anything. Instead, he takes her into his arms, murmuring softly as she sobs against his shoulder. Although they are far from being in the same place, this feels familiar. Safe. His fingers are in her hair and his arms wrap around her like a whirlpool—a resisting aftermath of a tornado. She lets him hold her together because she needs this. She wants this.

When her breathing starts to steady, he whispers against her ear, "There's a slight tremble in your heart. It isn't very noticeable. It was hard for me to hear it at all, really. But it's coming from the top chambers, and judging the fact that you haven't had any historic heart problems, it's most likely—"

"Atrial flutter," Cristina finishes for him. Wiping her eyes, she looks up at him, taking in how close they are to each other. "An irregular heart rhythm that can blur your vision, make you dizzy."

Owen nods. "Probably caused by—"

"Stress."

Cristina is unable to look away from his gaze this time and judging his expression, Owen is thinking the same thing. He lifts his hand to place against the side of her face, his thumb caressing her cheekbone. And before she can even register his motions, he leans in and presses his mouth against hers. Owen lays her down against the exam table, his body against hers in all the right places, as he kisses her as ferociously as she remembers. She twines her fingers in the strands of his hair, the taste of his lips still lingering against hers, even as he glides his mouth on her neck, even when she feels his fingers under the clasp of her bra, the button of her pants—

The knock on the door startles them both, as they jump apart to face Derek Shepherd, who stands at the doorway, hardly fazed. She scrambles out of the examination table, actively avoiding Owen's eyes as he stands there, running a hand through his hair. She holds out her hand, thinking Derek is back to deliver her blood test results, but staggers back as the sound of her pager goes off.

"Cristina, you have to come," Derek says, his voice sadder than usual. "It's Richard."

* * *

 **A/N: Such a hard chapter to write. I know no medicalness, so atrial flutter could mean something else entirely, but know that Cristina isn't sick or dying. But I can't promise that for all the characters.**

 **Thank you for all the reviews!**


	9. Chapter 9

"Charge to two-hundred!"

Cristina walks into Richard's hospital room, her eyes wide with terror as she watches Maggie crouch over Richard's still body with paddles in her hands. She shocks his body—faces stricken with despair as his heart continues to flat-line. She realizes she and Maggie aren't the only ones in this small, cramped room. Catherine is at the corner of the room, with her hands over her mouth and a stricken expression on her face. Arizona is next to her, trying to calm her down. Derek and Owen follow Cristina as she makes her way toward the table, so that she is facing Maggie. A crowd of people stare into the windows. Waiting for Richard to die. Praying for him to live.

"He was fine an hour ago!" Catherine says, her eyes filled with tears. "I was just saying how I was going to go pick him up something to eat, but when I come back, his heart is just… his heart—"

"Charge to three-hundred!" Maggie shouts.

"What the hell happened?" Cristina asks her quietly.

"Clear!"

Flat-line.

"I don't think the anticoagulants worked for the blood clots," Maggie says under her breath, so that Catherine does not hear. She glances at Derek and Owen, who are standing at the doorway, before turning back to Cristina. "I have a feeling this could be that embolism we were trying to avoid."

"Shit," Cristina whispers, her eyes wandering for any reason—any reason at all that she couldn't see this coming. "I told those residents to monitor him hourly since last night, and to page me or you if they saw anything strange. How the hell did this happen?"

Maggie looks at her sadly. "This tumor was aggressive. Its side effects were even more aggressive. More aggressive that we could have ever prepared for—"

But Cristina isn't listening anymore. She rips Richard's hospital gown apart in the front and presses her hands against his chest. "Starting CPR," she announces, as one of the nurses fumbles with the balloon pump, before placing it in Richard's mouth and squeezing it with her shaky hands.

"If you can't give him a steady rhythm," Cristina barks at the nurse, "then give it to someone who can." The nurse constructs her face to an indifferent concentration and focuses on each breath she is pushing into his lungs, as Cristina presses against his chest, trying her best to feel the rhythm in her hands.

 _Come on, Richard._

"This is _your_ fault," Catherine screams, almost hysterically, pointing her finger at Cristina. "You're the one who wanted to do the robotic surgery, something that's only been done a few times in the country. You're the one who wanted to bring your big hero complex into the OR and your decisions are going to _kill_ him—"

Owen steps forward, his voice grim and tempered. "Catherine—"

"Can someone please get her out of here?" Cristina snaps, her arms already cramping from pushing hard on his chest.

"I am not going anywhere," Catherine says, stepping closer. Her breath is staggering against Cristina's ears. "Get your hands off of my husband, Dr. Yang. You've done enough damage already, I can't sit here and watch you—"

"You need to leave _now_ ," Maggie says, stepping in between them. She glares at Catherine with her hand in the air. "Dr. Yang did the surgery as perfectly as any other brilliant surgeon would have. You aren't the only one who loves this man, fighting for his life right now. He is my _father._ And we haven't had the best relationship, and that's mostly my fault, but I love him, and you are not helping the situation right now."

"Oh please. If you are what he calls a daughter—"

"Get out!" Cristina yells, whipping around to look at tense, heated up faces. She continues resuscitating him, her hands bruising against each other. "I am trying to get Chief Webber's heart to work again. I am literally trying to restart his heart, and all you are doing is arguing. So if you're not going to help me, you all need to _get the hell out._ "

Before Catherine and Maggie could respond, the door bursts open and Meredith and a frazzled resident storm in. "He signed a DNR," the resident says, holding up a wrinkled piece of paper.

"Screw the papers," Meredith says, out of breath as she comes behind Cristina. "Let me take over, Cristina."

"Meredith, no—"

"Cristina, you're cramping up. Just let me help you."

Reluctantly, she steps aside and lets Meredith continue prodding Richard's chest. They are all standing there—almost a dozen doctors in one room—and watch in horror as Meredith continues to push. Cristina stands there, frozen and in such panic, that she isn't sure when she should step in, when she should let go.

Catherine steps over to where Meredith is standing and pushes her aside. Frantically, she places her own hands on her husband's chest and starts to push. "You can't leave me," she says, tears rolling down her cheeks. "You're the only man I've ever loved, Richard. You chose Adele and Ellis, but you chose me too. You chose _me_. We were supposed to grow old together. We were supposed to be forced out of the same OR together. Y-You're the only man I've ever loved, Richard Webber, so you're not allowed to leave me. Do you hear me?"

Cristina glances at Owen, almost instinctively, only to find that he is looking right at her.

Catherine's hands are slowing, the heartbeat that she's created for Richard falling out of pace. Swallowing, Cristina puts her hand over Catherine's on Richard's chest.

"Dr. Avery," she says softly, her own voice catching. Catherine continues to push. "It's been fifteen minutes. He's… he's gone."

"No," Catherine wails, shaking her head.

"We gave it our best shot… _his_ best shot," Cristina continues, squeezing Catherine's hands as it pounds against his chest. "He was one of my best teachers… but he's gone, Dr. Avery. He's gone."

Around the room, there is a symphony of sobs. Meredith's eyes fill with tears, as she places her hand over Richard's on his bed.

"He's the only man I've ever loved," Catherine whispers again.

Cristina's hands do not leave Catherine's, as she brings them to her sides. Part of Cristina expects her to flip out, to burst into a ball of chaos, to get violent. But she is surprised when Catherine turns to face Cristina and throws her arms around her neck in a tight embrace. After a moment, Cristina finds herself pressing her palms against Catherine's back and grabbing on for dear life.

Her solemn eyes reflect against Owen's, as she understands that sometimes, you just need something to hold onto.


	10. Chapter 10

Meredith's house is quiet when Cristina walks in half past 10PM. The kids are sound asleep, with Derek's light snores floating from upstairs, and Meredith is in the living room with her eyes glued to an episode of America's Next Top Model on the large flat-screen.

Cristina plops down next to her and links her arm with her person, resting her head on her shoulder. "I'm sorry about Richard," she says.

"He was your mentor too," Meredith says, watching emotionlessly, as a blonde model tackles the brunette in the dressing room. "What took you so long to get back?"

"I spent two hours in the morgue," Cristina tells her, sighing. "They're going to perform an autopsy on Richard tomorrow, find out exactly how…" She drifts off, not entirely accidentally. She decides to go a different route. "Maggie offered to plan the funeral. They're going to have a simple ceremony, sometime next week."

Finally, Meredith looks up at Cristina, and even though she looks skeletal, there's still a flesh of redemption in her eyes. "It's not your fault," she says, putting a hand over Cristina's.

"I know," Cristina says, fresh new tears filling in old gaps. "I know that. But still. I'm the one who performed his surgery. My hands were the last ones inside his body."

"Your robot hands, actually."

Cristina looks at Meredith flatly, before they both end up sprawling over each other on the couch in a fit of hysterical laughter—the kind that's throaty and out of nowhere, the kind that catches you with its cruelty, the kind that aches.

"He's gone," Meredith whispers, her laughter slowly simmering to a sad smile. Cristina nods, knowing that this is the first of many moments that the loss sinks into you, fast and hard, furiously relentless. "Are you staying for the funeral?"

"Yes," Cristina says. "But I'm leaving right after. I called Dr. Crawford back a few hours ago. I'm not taking the job."

"Oh, Cristina—"

"Let's not talk about it."

"You're running away," Meredith tells her. "You're always craving what's next, Cristina. And this is it. You know it, and I know it, and I'm pretty sure Owen knows it too—"

"Meredith—"

"How is this any different from moving away from your pampered Beverley Hills life to become a doctor? Or doing your fellowship in frigid coldness? Or moving to Zurich?"

"It's _painful_ ," Cristina says, her voice rising. "It's painful that Richard died, and that every time I return here, there's an alarm that tells me to turn the hell away. It's painful that Owen and I are… I don't know. I don't know what we are, and that's painful to me."

"No," Meredith says. "It's confusing. But painful is when there isn't a road back home. Or when you lose someone you can't get back. Painful is when there is an ending without a solution. But _this_ … you and him? It's confusing, and it's complicated, but it isn't the end. You said it yourself when you left for Zurich: you aren't finished. And you have a sign now, waiting for you. Plus you're a kick-ass surgeon who should take the job regardless."

"So you believe in signs now? Meredith Grey, you've changed. Must be the whole chief thing."

"You've changed too," Meredith responds, giving Cristina a small smile. "When did you become such a pansy?"

"Oh shut up," Cristina says, slapping Meredith's shoulder with one of the throw pillows on the couch.

"Ouch," Meredith squeals, holding her arm with her fingers and glaring at Cristina incredulously. "That one has beads on it, you bitch."

"Who's the pansy now?"

Another aching laughter sits between them on the couch. Another moment passes, this one harder than before, as Cristina and Meredith fall back against each other and let the shadows rip away the night.

* * *

It is raining outside, one of those foggy downpours with trembling casts of lightning that Cristina does not miss about Seattle. The kind she used to jolt awake from, sweat on her forehead, as she tries to remember the nightmare that broke away from her thoughts abruptly. The type of rainstorm that was comforting and daunting, all the same, and reminded her of wanting to stay in bed forever.

It is raining outside, so she couldn't tell if the light knock on the front door was an intruder or just the pounding of raindrops against sheer glass. As Cristina sits up on the couch, careful not to wake up a heavily asleep Meredith beside her, she spots a familiar shadow outside. Just with the slightest of movements, small tendencies, she knows it is him.

"This late-night showing has to stop happening. You have to at least throw rocks at my window," Cristina says, as she opens the front door. Owen is almost completely drenched, and even worse, he has his sleeping two-year-old son strapped into a stroller, and Cristina can see tiny drops finding their way onto Beau's blonde hair.

"I love you," Owen blurts, unfazed at how enormous Cristina's eyes turn. "I know that you don't want to hear it. I know that it scares you. But I'm saying it, out loud. I love you, and I have always loved you, and I can't imagine that I'll ever stop."

"Owen, come inside. It's freaking pouring, and you sound like a crazy person."

 _Painful is when there isn't a road back home._

"You said there's a missing piece," he continues, as if he doesn't hear Cristina at all. "That the only way we would both be happy, truly happy, is if you had a baby, or if I decided I didn't want one."

He pushes Beau's stroller inside, finally realizing that it's absurd for his son to be out in the cold. Cristina expects Owen to step inside as well, but as soon as Beau is indoors, he continues talking in the rain.

"But you're wrong, Cristina." He reaches out and takes her hand, presses it against his chest. "Beau is my missing piece. He _was_ my missing piece, but he's here, in my world, in my life."

 _Painful is when there is an ending without a solution._

"Owen—"

 _You and me. Us._

"But you're not," he says, stepping closer to her. She can feel how soaked his coat is, and how his entire body is dripping rainwater onto Meredith's very expensive, white carpet. "You're not with me. It's been four years, Cristina, and I'm not whole yet."

Her fingers curl around the buttons of his coat, and she finds herself pulling him into the warmth, peeling the wet jacket over his shoulders. His arms snake around her waist, and the soppiness of the rain on his clothes remind her of their first date—the best and the worst of what has happened, of what could be.

 _This isn't the end._

Owen's breath is hot against her ear. "Where's the rest of the puzzle?"

In seconds, they are flying up the staircase, not before pulling Beau's stroller next to an unconscious Meredith, toward the guest room. Cristina tears off the rest of his wet clothes, as Owen plants a trail of kisses—against her mouth, her collarbone, the navel of her belly, and further down. She buries her face on the crook of his neck, as he pulls himself into her.

There are very few places where she could feel this much safety in a canvas of exhilaration. This moment fills her—hard and fast, furiously relentless.

She doesn't want to keep score—of the good moments, and the bad, and the ugly—but as she laces her fingers with his and finds sleep willing her eyes to close, she wants this to be the first of many, too.


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning, Cristina is in a tangle of limbs. There is an arm draped over her waist, a warm chest against the bend of her back, a breathy rhythm on the side of her neck. For a moment, Cristina expects to turn around and see a complete stranger she took home from a bar, which became sort of a routine for her every Friday night back in Zurich.

But the bits and pieces of last night come back to her in waves: the moment they both realized what they were doing, what this could mean, and the second they decided not to care. The way his eyes locked on hers, as he entered her, and how he kept it there. The quietness around them, after they were done, when he asked _are you okay?_ but she pretended to be asleep, partly to avoid conversation about what they might regret when the sunlight hits their faces, but mostly because in that exact moment, with his arms cocooned around her, she didn't want anything to change.

"Owen?"

He stirs slightly, his face shifting on Cristina's neck, but he is still out. She glances at the clock: 7:25 AM.

 _Damn it,_ she thinks. Slowly, she puts her hand on his, where it rests on her belly, and moves it over her body. With this, Owen rolls over onto the other side of the bed, where he lets out a slight sigh before continuing to breathe heavily. As she gets out of bed, she finds herself staring at him a little while longer before she leaves the room.

Downstairs, Meredith is in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. Kasey is on her high chair, stuffing Cheerios into her mouth. And Cristina is surprised to find Zola and Bailey on the sofa, making disturbingly silly faces at Beau, who seems to be in just about the crankiest mood.

When Meredith sees her, she is more than a little displeased. "What the hell, Cristina?" she swears under her breath.

"Good morning, Meredith Grey. You're just a spot of sunshine," Cristina says, as she heads straight for the coffee machine.

"Imagine my surprise when I wake up to the sound of a baby crying and realize that he's not my kid," Meredith says irritably.

"God, that sounds like a horrible spin-off of those movies where the chick doesn't know she's pregnant until her water breaks and the less-than-attractive boyfriend is nowhere to be found."

"Cristina." Meredith sets the plate down on the counter and looks over the table to where her kids are sitting, to make sure they aren't listening in. "When I said that you guys aren't finished and that this was a grand sweeping sign, I didn't mean to have _sex_ with him the next chance you get. Especially not in my guest room."

"Mommy said a bad word," Zola giggles into Bailey's ear. Bailey looks at his mother and grins, altogether unbothered and unaware of what the bad word was.

Meredith glares at Cristina. "Now you've made me use profane language in front of my children."

"I'm sorry," Cristina says, as she presses the button for the coffee maker. "But in my defense, you did build that room just for me. I think that implies that I get to do as I please in there."

"Derek said he thought it was an earthquake."

Cristina feels her face get hot, unable to respond when she hears Beau crying from the sofa. She glances toward the living room, and feels herself panicking as he cries louder, his face in tear tracks.

"Mommy," Bailey says, pointing at Beau helplessly, as he continues to wail.

"Cristina," Meredith says. "Go hold him."

Cristina glances at Meredith incredulously as she pours the coffee into the large mug. "Hold your own son."

"I'm talking about Beau."

"What?" Cristina sets down the pot of coffee and glances back and forth from Beau to Meredith. "I don't…I don't even know how to—"

"Hold a baby?" Meredith inquires, and by the look on her face, Cristina can tell she finds this borderline amusing. "Come on, you can do fancy robotic surgery, but you don't know how to hold a child?"

"It's too early to start making jokes about Webber," Cristina tells her.

"It is," Meredith responds apologetically. "Now go pick up the kid."

Hesitantly, Cristina strides over toward the couch. She looks at Beau, who is just crying defenselessly, for a few moments before leaning forward to take him into her arms. He is heavier than she expects, but after a few seconds, he stops fidgeting and relaxes on the length of Cristina's forearms.

"Hi Beau," Cristina says softly, as he looks at her questionably with tear-filled eyes. "I'm Cristina. We've met before, but you were crying then, too."

Beau looks at her, unresponsive.

"Your daddy is still sleeping," Cristina continues, swaying sideways with Beau like they are dancing. "But he will be down really soon, okay?"

"Daddy," Beau repeats, flashing his two front teeth at her.

On cue, she hears Owen's voice distantly from the bottom of the staircase. "Cristina?" His eyes widen as Cristina turns around, and Beau lifts his hand to wave at his father. "I'm sorry, was he fussy this morning? Why didn't you wake me?"

He strides over to Cristina and takes Beau from her, as Cristina glances at Meredith, who is giving her the most questionable glare. Beau instantly nuzzles his face in Owen's shoulder and wraps his small arms around his neck. "He wasn't fussy at all," Cristina tells him, watching Owen's interaction with Beau. It's funny, but somehow not at all, to see Owen so natural with him. Maybe it's because they were always fighting whenever the topic came up, or she pushed him desperately towards what she knew he wanted, but she never noticed it before. Not like this, at least.

"Owen, did you want to stay for breakfast too?" Meredith says from the kitchen, her voice not completely scraped of the bitterness.

"You're cooking?" Cristina scoffs, as Zola comes up to her with a very classily-dressed doll and asks to play, which Cristina declines.

"Oh, no," Owen replies, as Beau starts to look sleepy against his shoulder. "I need to drop this little guy off with Amelia. Then I have a surgery."

Meredith nods, and Cristina offers to walk Owen out. When they are alone together, outside in the cold, she notices that they are both a little embarrassed, a little awkward, and most of all, completely at loss of how to continue what had just happened, or even what to say.

Cristina clears her throat. "Well, um. Thank you for… uh, last night. That was, um…"

"That was, uh, fun."

"Yeah, loads of fun." Cristina watches at he taps his foot anxiously, and Beau stirs slightly in his stroller. She finds herself staring at Beau, at his blonde hair and tiny hands, and thinks of how he calmed down in her arms and how he smiled at her. This doesn't warm her; instead, it makes Cristina panic. "So listen—"

"No, me first," he says, holding up a hand. "I don't regret last night, Cristina. I don't know what's going to happen. But I know that I want—"

"I don't want to be Beau's mom," Cristina blurts, looking at the kid in the stroller. "I don't want to drive him to soccer games and make cartoon shaped pancakes and give him advice about how to get the ladies."

"Whoa, Cristina, slow down. No one's talking about raising kids and soccer games," he says, taking her hand. "Plus, Beau would totally be throwing pitches anyway. And Hunt men always get the ladies no matter what—"

"Owen, this isn't funny," she says, yanking her hand away, but he catches it again.

"Hey, this is about you and me," he says softly. "Beau? He has a mom. He has a wonderful, smart mother that will teach him all the things he will ever want to learn. This is about you and me, okay?"

She looks at him. Cristina can't shake the polarity of it all. How can she feel so safe in his arms, with just the quietness of the night and his slow breathing? How can she feel equally safe when they are far, far apart, in two different worlds?

"Let's talk about this later, all right?" he says, lifting his hand to press against the side of her face. His thumb circles around her cheekbone. "I have to go."

"Okay," she says, as he kisses her. His lips are soft and gentle, and this takes her back to good luck pecks before surgeries and stolen kisses in the elevator and goodnight kisses that lasted all the way till morning. He turns away and walks towards his car, tucking in Beau in the backseat. Cristina turns towards the house, hand ready to close the door, but she finds herself looking back. "Owen?"

His hand is on the driver's door when he looks up at her.

She opens her mouth, wanting to tell him about declining UCLA's offer, about Richard's surgery. She wants to ask him what he thinks she should do, if he thinks she made the right call, the right decision. She can make this decision by herself; she always has been able to. But there is something gnawing at her, something unbreaking, that tells her she doesn't want to do this by herself. Not anymore.

As abruptly as she opened her mouth, she closes it. "Never mind," she says.

If Owen is surprised, he doesn't show it. "You sure?"

"Yeah," she says.

Nodding, he opens his truck door and guns the engine. Cristina looks down, noticing that her feet are pressed against the wetness of the grass, dirt rubbing between her toes. The glint against the horizon casts on the side of her face, warming her. Meredith's front yard looks completely new, the clear sky daring to move above her. And as Owen pulls out, waving goodbye as he drives past the house, Cristina closes her eyes, immersing herself in the aftermath of what's been washed out by the storm.

* * *

Inside, Meredith is dressed in a coat, Kasey in her arms, and nags Zola and Bailey to get their shoes on.

"You're going to the hospital?" Cristina asks, as she closes the door behind her.

"Yeah," Meredith responds. "Dr. Bailey is taking the day off, so I offered to take over her surgeries. You know she likes a jam-packed schedule."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Ask Pierce if she needs consults in anything."

"She's not even going to be in today," Cristina tells her, sitting back on the couch and reaching for the remote. "She gave her surgeries to some fifth-year resident."

"So you're just going to stick around here and do nothing?"

"I am going to drink coffee," Cristina says, grabbing her mug on the coffee table and sticking it in the air. "And I'm going to make popcorn and watch a lot of reality TV that I don't normally watch."

"Sounds like a snooze," Meredith says, heading for the door. "But you're allowed. Knowing you, you'll be in the hospital within the next two hours. We don't even have popcorn."

Cristina smiles, as Meredith locks the door behind her, and clicks open the TV. She settles into the sofa, exhaling. Even after an hour passes, Cristina finds herself unable to relax. She shifts from the sofa to the coffee machine, pouring herself two cups, until she is overly jittery and unable to sit still. She paces the floor, altogether unbothered when a woman on the screen continues to cry revoltingly. She looks from her phone to the door a dozen times, slowly convincing herself that she has lost her mind.

Finally, she dials Dr. Wendy Crawford's number. She picks up on the second ring.

"Dr. Crawford?" Cristina takes a deep breath. "This is Dr. Yang. If it still stands, I'd like to accept your offer."


	12. Chapter 12

At ten o'clock a.m., Cristina hangs up the phone with Dr. Crawford, who sounded as happy as her personality could muster when she hears Cristina's change of heart. She doesn't want to admit it, but Cristina is just as excited when she hears Wendy talk about what UCLA can offer her heart printing research. Cristina is ecstatic, off the walls, astounded that she'd waited so long to bring herself to this point.

At eleven, she finds herself pacing the floor, stricken with sudden panic of what she had just gotten herself into. It is unrealistic for her to remain distant from Owen, or Meredith, to completely detach herself from Seattle and the people she left four years ago. It is impossible that she wouldn't resume friendships with nights out at bars and weekend trips, or attach old telephone wires that have been cut through by lightning. This scares her as much as it relieves her.

At noon, she hunts Meredith's kitchen for food, only to realize that there isn't anything she can pop into a microwave and prepare in less than twenty minutes.

At one, after eating a granola bar and a leftover baggie of animal crackers, Cristina steals Meredith's car keys and finds herself driving to Grey Sloan Memorial. She needs to be in an OR, to immerse herself in medicine, to problem solve something that she can actually solve.

When she walks in, the first person she sees is Alex, who is by the front desk, smiling at his wife. "Karev," Cristina calls, as she walks closer. "You need to give me one of your surgeries."

Alex snorts. "No way. Find your own."

"Hi Dr. Yang," Jo greets, her eyes lighting up. "It's good to see you!"

Cristina ignores this and turns back to Alex. "Come on. We're not interns anymore—I'm not trying to steal your spotlight or make my pretty little way back to the hospital. I just need to get my hands dirty."

"You didn't come to my wedding, and nothing you do is ever pretty," Alex responds hastily, handing the chart in his hand to Cristina. "Except maybe your sutures. This is Bryce. He's fourteen years old, has got a really potty mouth, and quite an inflamed appendix. He's all yours."

Cristina looks through the chart quizzically. "Are you serious? Alex, you're giving me an appendectomy?"

He leans past Cristina to give Jo a kiss, before turning away and walking down the hall. Cristina falls in step beside him. "Well, I was going to give it to my first-year resident to do, maybe assist him in his first solo," he explains. "But since you're so desperate for a surgery, he'll get it next time."

"You're unbelievable," Cristina scoffs, tucking the chart under her arm. But she is already running through the steps of an appendectomy in her head, mentally preparing. She smiles slightly, thinking of the last time she did this procedure, with Teddy, all those years ago. Alex picks up his pace, as they turn the corner.

"I heard you got, like, a million dollars from UCLA to do research."

"Five million," she corrects.

"Whatever," Alex responds, as they reach the elevator. Cristina presses the up button. Alex presses the down. "I would congratulate you, but I hate you too much, so you're just going to have to settle for a pat on the back."

He pats her, not exactly lightly, on her back, as she gives him a miffed glare.

"I'm glad you'll be around though," he says, as the elevator opens, the down arrow lighting up. Alex walks in and presses the button. "It'll give me my competitive edge back. Finally, someone I can feel good about defeating."

Cristina can't help but laugh. Even if it's just slightly, she feels like pieces are falling into place. "In your dreams, Evil Spawn."

* * *

When it is time for the appendectomy on Bryce, Cristina is gloved and gowned as she turns the corner to the operating rooms and collides straight into Maggie, who is in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans that looks like they were in style twenty years ago. When Maggie looks up, Cristina notices that her eyes are red and cold, even as they lift with curiosity.

"Dr. Yang," Maggie says. "I thought you would be in Zurich by now."

"Oh, no," Cristina responds, unsure of whether or not to tell Maggie about accepting the offer at UCLA. She wants Meredith to be the first to hear it, or maybe even Owen, so she zips her mouth. "I'm staying a few days. Until the funeral, at least."

Maggie nods. "Right."

"How are you doing?"

It is a loaded question, Cristina is realizing. It's one of those questions people feel obligated to ask each other, even if it doesn't amount to any of the emotions we're bearing, even if it doesn't solve any grief or substitute any happiness. It is a loaded question, but it's asked over and over again, because it needs to be.

"Oh, I'm _great_ ," Maggie replies, fake enthusiasm. "You know, I took the day off, because I thought I needed rest, because I thought I needed to just…" Her voice trails off, as she looks up at Cristina. "I found myself sitting on my couch, watching stupid TV shows I've never even heard of, unable to be distracted. I just kept thinking about Richard… my own blood father, and how I had four years to get to know him, and I just…"

"You just needed to come here," Cristina finishes for her.

"This is the only place I know for the sure," Maggie says, gesturing around. A smile teases the edges of her lips. "You know, it's strange. We lose so many people, every single day, and if you let yourself, it's so easy to feel like you've failed. But still, this is only place I know for sure, the only place I can come back to. This is the only place that I feel safe and completely in control, even when I'm not."

Cristina understands this, too, which is why when Maggie turns her heel, she reaches out to grab her shoulder. "Come do an appendectomy with me," she offers, and Maggie is unable to mask her surprise. "This kid supposedly has the filthiest mouth in the world."

Despite everything, Maggie lets out a laugh. "I haven't done an appendectomy in _years_."

Hesitantly, they both walk towards the empty hallway down. "Me neither."

* * *

When they finally get Bryce to stop cursing to let him see his parents, Cristina and Maggie put him under and find themselves talking about Richard, or rather, mostly their own glimpses of his surgical career.

"I remember," Cristina says, as she slices Bryce's abdomen with a 10-blade, "when there was this crazy storm in Seattle and the power went out, and Richard guided me through this surgery in the dark. I didn't think I could learn anything more powerful than feeling my way through a surgery."

"I scrubbed in with him on a kidney transplant a few months ago, before he was diagnosed, and he has such a way with his craft. It's like working with an all-star and wondering to yourself how you'll ever be that good." Maggie smiles to herself, as she grabs the retractor to help Cristina open the incision. As they spread open the cavity, Maggie says softly, "I can't believe he's gone."

"Me too," Cristina says, suddenly thinking of her father, of George and Lexie and Mark, of Dr. Thomas. "I've lost a lot of people in my life, most of them from this hospital, so it makes me think that this place is a little cursed. But it never gets any easier. You never really know how to deal with it, and you don't get over it completely."

"I just wish I'd known him better, you know?" Maggie sighs as pulls out a clamp and inserts it into the cavity to start pulling on a very inflamed appendix. "I wish I'd invited him to dinner, or asked him about his wife. I wish I was able to accept him, the way that he learned to accept me. I just wish I'd taken the time I had to get to know him better. Catherine was right: I was a lousy daughter."

"He was a good man," Cristina says simply. "He knew you cared about him, even when you didn't."

As Maggie lifts the appendix to clamp, she sniffles. Cristina looks up alarmingly and notices Maggie trying to stifle her tears through her mask.

"Hey, no crying in the OR."

Sniffle. "Okay."

After they clamp the appendix at the base and begin to remove it, and Maggie's tears have all but dried, she clears her throat. "So, you and Hunt?"

Cristina looks up, incredulous. "How did you—"

"People gossip."

"I underestimate this hospital sometimes," Cristina says, shaking her head. But she is slightly amused. She didn't like Maggie when she first met her, and she never thought she would. But talking with her now, Cristina is aware of how easy it is to connect, to find amenity and warmth in an unfamiliar place. _Maybe it's a cardio thing_ , she thinks.

"How's that going?"

"Complicated," Cristina says, as she takes the removed appendix and places it on an ice tray. "See, with Owen? He thinks the solution is simpler than I do. I think too much—I always have."

"Story of my life," Maggie responds, as she grabs the saline solution to pour over the cavity. "My mom used to get phone calls from my elementary school teachers, who worried I was too analytical when learning how to add and subtract… and color."

"Is that how you sped through med school? You should change your specialty to coloring. I'm pretty sure that's your calling."

"Oh, shut up," Maggie says defensively. "It wasn't always a breeze. Relationships were never easy."

"So you've never dipped your toes in the Grey Sloan dating pool?"

"Oh, I have," Maggie tells her, as she starts to suture the wound. "I dated this nurse, who spends most of his time on the general surgery floor. He had this horrible sense of humor. Then I went out with Dr. Holden, the anesthesiologist? Then he moved away to Brooklyn. Oh, and there was this short period of time where I dated Jackson Avery, but he and Kepner had this weird on-and-off thing, so that ended badly."

"You screwed _Avery?_ " Cristina says, trying—and failing miserably—to hide her laugh.

"It was _one time_." Maggie blushes. "Maybe twice."

"He had a thing for me too," Cristina teases. "Back when we were residents. Must be a cardio thing."

"Yeah, must be," Maggie says. Cristina expects her to be sarcastic, but as Maggie gives her a smile from across the table, she realizes that _this_ , of all things, is genuine.

When they stitch Bryce up and slowly ease him off the anesthesia, Cristina and Maggie step out into the scrub room and switch on the faucets. It is quiet for a moment, and Cristina knows that neither of them wants to admit how much an appendectomy had healed them.

"That was successful," Maggie observes, as she scrubs.

"It's an appy," Cristina says. "It's supposed to be."

"Well," Maggie says, wiping her hands, "when is anything as easy as it's supposed to be, anyway?"

Cristina knows she means this with no reference, that it's not entirely about grieving for Richard or concluding with Owen, that this is just something people say—a general statement that's meant to hit the right person, at the right time, if you're lucky. But it sticks with Cristina, longer than a moment's worth.

As Maggie gives Cristina a nod and starts to head for the door, Cristina calls, "Pierce." Maggie whips around, anticipating. Cristina signals with her hands, which are still foamy from scrubbing, around the OR—the open space around them, the patient fixed up on the table, and the room that always bounded her with comfort and excitement, all the same. "About what you said about being here, in this room with your hands inside a person's body, and how it's the only place you can rely on to feel safe and in control…"

"Oh, that was… I didn't mean—"

"I feel like that too," Cristina interrupts. "The OR is what makes me feel human… what makes me feel alive. It's my home, and I feel safe in it, and I know that I can always come back, even when stuff _out there_ has gone to shit. Hell, I did that today, and so did you. We couldn't stand to be alone, on a couch doing the most normal things in the world, and so we come here, and we get high on a freaking appy."

Maggie looks at her, confused, and Cristina realizes she doesn't know where she's going with this.

But then she thinks of him, of drinking coffee together in the mornings before their surgeries, of the way his brows furrow when he's thinking hard about something, of molding herself against him and getting sunk into that kind of spiral. There are so many things in this world that can make you feel like you feel like you're going insane and out of control, that can be dangerous and heartbreaking and tragically complicated. But there are soft corners in the edge empty rooms, and shoulders to rest your heavy head upon, and open palms to hold onto. There are constant stars in a world that refuses to wait for anyone.

"There is more than one place you can feel safe in," Cristina finishes for Maggie.

Without waiting to see her reaction, Cristina dries her hands and pushes the scrub room door open. She starts to walk down the hallway, ripping away at the gown as she does, and then starts to run, because she decides that she can't wait anymore either.


	13. Chapter 13

After a half an hour, Cristina starts to wonder why she seems to run into him in the least expected, unannounced places, and yet, when she so desperately needs to find him, he is nowhere in sight. She'd searched the ER with as much scrutiny as a full body scan, only to get pushed into a ten minute catch-up session with April, who seemed more concerned about Cristina's desire to find Owen than inserting a chest tube in the emergency patient between them. She'd stormed into all the on-call rooms, waking up at least a dozen sleepy surgeons, none of whom were Owen. She'd checked the labs, the radiology wing, the conference room.

She is almost ready to head out and knock on the door of his little white house, when she passes the OR board and notices that he is doing a colectomy with Meredith, just down the hall.

When she stumbles into the empty gallery, she looks at the surgery through the glass. Meredith is yelling at an intern to suction, while Owen has his elbows deep into the patient's intestines. His eyes are fixated on his hands, concentrated, and she finds herself easing back on a chair and mesmerized at the screen in front of her. As she waits for an opportunity to speak, for a slow moment to get his attention, she realizes she is in the exact spot she'd said goodbye to him, all those years ago.

"Okay, Dr. Grey," she hears Owen say, as he lifts his hands from the patient's body. "Patient's stable. Thank you for your assistance. Can you update the family, while I close?"

As Meredith nods and starts to take off her gloves, Cristina quickly stands up to press the intercom. "Owen," she begins, and clears her throat a few times more than needed.

He and Meredith look up at the sound of her voice, both their expressions in complete surprise.

"What are you doing up there, Cristina?" Meredith asks, her eyes bugging out. "I thought you were staying at the house today."

But Cristina looks at Owen. "Okay, so you've done most of the talking," she says to him. "And I've done a lot of listening, but I've also done a lot of thinking. So it's my turn to talk, and your turn to listen and think."

He stares at her, for what seems like an eternity, before he grabs the sutures from the intern beside him and sits on the stool to begin suturing up the patient. Meredith crosses her arms and glares at Cristina, also making a statement that she's staying put.

"Okay," he says simply. "I'm listening."

"I love you," Cristina says, and she immediately laughs to herself. "Oh god, that's not even where I wanted to begin. But fine. I love you, okay? And I know that you know that. And I know that you love me, too. But that's never been the issue, Owen."

Cristina glances at Meredith, who looks like she might urinate in her pants, then looks back at Owen, who is just nodding while suturing up the man on the table.

"I don't want to be a replacement for the life you and Amelia built together," Cristina continues hesitantly. "I don't want you to expect that I'll move in, and that you and I and your kid will be one happy family."

Owen looks up. "You're not a replacement, Cristina."

"Shhh," Cristina says, holding up a hand. "You're supposed to be the one listening, remember?"

"All right."

"Things are different now than they were four years ago. We both got to do a lot of what we wanted, and we both had the chance to be _who_ we wanted to be, too. I want to believe you when you say that Beau is your missing piece, and that you've found him, and that he's filled the spot in your life that has always deserved to be filled." Cristina's voice catches, and as he is now staring intently at her, she realizes that tears are filling her eyes. "I'm happy that your puzzle still has room for me. Believe me, that makes me just as happy as that offer from those big guys at UCLA. But it terrifies me, too. God, it scares the crap out of me because I want those things. I want to be with you, because even though it terrifies me, it makes me whole, Owen, and—"

"Cristina—"

"God, you're a really bad listener, you know that?" Cristina chokes out, half-laughing, half-crying. His eye dance in a ballad of wild containment, but he shuts up.

"I took the offer at UCLA," she tells him, and nods when Meredith's eyes light up, not with surprise, but with expectance. She presses her hand against the glass, looking down at him. "So I'm here. I love you, and I'm here. Of course, I'll be traveling a lot from Switzerland to L.A., but Seattle is a two hour flight away. It's not going to rainbows and butterflies. I mean, I'm not even sure how many weeks at a time I'll be able to spend here, but—"

Suddenly, Owen gets up from his stool and drops the suturing kit onto the pull-out table beside him. Without a glance at Cristina, he strips his gloves off and peels his mask over his head.

"Page me when he wakes up," he says to the nurses, who start to shuffle the patient out of the OR. Then he turns toward the door.

"What the hell?" Cristina shouts, banging on the glass with her fist.

"Owen," Meredith says, startled as he swings open the door and leaves the OR.

Cristina's mouth hangs open. "Where the hell is he going?"

Two minutes later, Owen enters the gallery, out of breath as he grips the doorknob and stares at Cristina, a smile on his face. In moments, Cristina is in his arms, and his lips are moving across hers like they'd never left. His hands intertwine with the curls on the back of her head, and her fingers slide up his chest, behind his neck.

"God, I love you," he says, as they break apart. He touches her face, and Cristina beams at the warmth of it all.

"You're a horrible listener," she whispers, before she kisses him again.

* * *

 _Three months later._

Cristina smiles as she sifts through the crowds of people at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She didn't think she'd like traveling. She didn't think she would like moving around, never fully settled before she has to pick up and leave again. She is used to staying put, in one place, with everything she needed and wanted. Never had it occurred to her that what she needed and wanted were in many different places.

The flight from L.A. was bumpy, and with all the traveling that she's been doing, she is realizing that Seattle thunderstorms are possibly the worst thing to ever run into on a flight. When she finally beats the swarm of travelers, she spots Meredith's car in a line outside the airport, with her three kids asleep in the backseat.

"Mer, sorry," Cristina says, flustered, as she walks towards her at the airport entrance and struggles to balance all of her luggage in her arms. "Seattle rain sucks."

"Two hours of delay?" she says, shaking her head, as she reaches over to pop the trunk open. "The flight is only two hours, for God's sakes."

"Thanks for picking me up," Cristina tells her, as she throws her things in the trunk and climbs into the passenger seat. She blows a kiss to Zola, who startles awake at the sound of the car door slamming shut.

"Yes, yes," Meredith says, waving a hand, feigning nonchalance. "I'm your personal chauffeur. That's what a best friend does. So how was it?"

"Oh my god, it was amazing," Cristina says, sitting back on her seat as Meredith starts to pull out of the airport parking lot. "We're officially launching this thing, Mer. After four years and two trials, I can't believe it. I mean, Grey Sloan can adopt this technology in just a matter of months."

Meredith looks at Cristina, smile wide. "You're kidding."

"I wish," she responds. "I keep pinching myself, thinking I'm going to wake up from this dream. I swear, I have like ten bruises on my arm. Wanna see?"

"No."

"I wanna see!" Zola shouts from the back.

Cristina rolls up her sleeves and turns around to show Zola a mark on her upper right arm, which she got last week from hitting it on the corner of her office desk back in Zurich, not from excessive pinching. Still, Zola is more than a little intrigued.

At first, it was hard for Cristina to come up with a concrete schedule. After her confession to Owen in the OR gallery, she'd quickly up and left back to Zurich for several meetings, surgeries, and to lead training sessions—alongside with Wendy—for collaborative techniques. Then, after printers were shipped to UCLA and the trial was ready to start on the first of the next month, Cristina flew back to Seattle for Richard's funeral. Quickly after, Cristina worked closely with Shane, and reluctantly agreed to let him run the trials in Zurich (with her flying back to monitor him on occasion), which left her traveling weeks at a time from L.A. to Seattle for the following months. It was exhausting, but equally exhilarating, and Cristina was getting used to the idea that goodbyes weren't imperishable.

"I promise," Cristina had said to Owen, two weeks ago, when they were in bed together. She cupped his face in her hands. "I'll be back more often. This project is growing so much quicker than I'd even anticipated. It's _amazing_ , Owen, but I promise you that we're going to work this out, and that it'll be easier—"

He shut her up by kissing her, abruptly, announcing his patience. And she was grateful, at the time and now. But even so, she wanted more, something as permanent as she felt when she was with him.

Now, though, as they pull into a community of houses just a few blocks away from the hospital, Meredith eyes linger on the stuffed animal clown that creeps out of Cristina's bag. Cristina follows her gaze to where her bag is resting at her feet, and scowls at her best friend.

"Don't even," she warns.

"Is that for Beau?" Meredith asks, already cackling at probably the most hideous stuffed animal she'd ever seen. "You're going to give the kid nightmares."

Cristina grabs the clown from her bag and hits Meredith's shoulder with it, causing her to swerve slightly on the road.

"Ow!" Meredith squeals. She glances back at her kids, who are all now awake from both the bickering and Meredith's sideslip. "Kids, don't ever drive with your Aunt Cristina next to you, or else you're bound to get yourself into a car accident."

"This clown is not hideous," Cristina defends, stroking its ketchup red dreads and running her fingers along its insanely huge eyes. The outfit—a yellow jumpsuit with pink polka dots—don't help Cristina's argument at all.

"I beg to differ," Meredith says, making a turn at the stop sign. She glances ahead impatiently. "Jeez, Cristina, how far is this place, anyway?"

Cristina ignores this. Instead, she turns around to face Meredith's kids and motions the stuffed clown in the air. "Is this clown hideous?"

"What's wrong with its eyes?" Zola asks.

Bailey glances from Cristina to the clown, looking pained. "I don't like clowns."

"I want him to like me," Cristina claims, turning back around to look at Meredith, who is inappropriately amused at this entire exchange.

Meredith snorts. "Isn't he already sleeping with you?"

"I'm not talking about Owen, genius," Cristina says, stuffing the clown back into her bag. "I mean Beau."

"You want him to like you… so you bought him a hideous clown doll?"

"Yes, is that so bad?" Cristina sighs, exasperated. "I don't want him to hate his daddy's girlfriend, the one that comes to visit on the weekends, and moves him away from that little house on the prairie. I don't want to drive him away from being with Owen just because I'm in his life, too. That doesn't seem fair."

"Cristina," Meredith says, grinning as she shakes her head. "He's two years old. And besides, Owen loves you. And his kid will, too. My kids were _so_ excited that you were coming back, they were all willing put on their shoes without me having to nag them this morning. Isn't that right?" The three of them nod enthusiastically in the back. "So don't sweat it."

Cristina glances at the clown, peeking out of her bag, and smiles. "Thanks, Mer."

"No problem," Meredith responds. "Now where the hell are we going?"

It isn't until they've circled the same community about five times, before they realize they're lost. "I don't know," Cristina says, glancing around for a familiar landmark. "I've only been here once, when Owen and I signed the lease."

"What's the house number again?"

After several minutes of going down the same road, they finally spot it. It's not a small little white house, but it is about the same size, only grey and more modern. There isn't a whole lot of grass, which Cristina appreciates, but it's modestly perfect.

"Are you sure you want this one?" Owen had asked her, when they stepped inside for the first time to sign the papers. "Because we can keep looking. It doesn't have to be the first thing we see."

But Cristina didn't have any hesitations. Not when she stepped in to see vacant rooms and dark brown vinyl floors and white walls, a fresh slate. Not when she and Owen plastered scans of their best surgeries against their bedroom walls, or installed brand new marble countertops, or built a swing set for Beau in the backyard. And especially not the night they moved in, and Beau was with his mother that night, they spent the entire night together in empty rooms, in each other's arms, just waiting for the moment to catch up to them.

"So, drinks tomorrow night, right?" Meredith says, rolling down her window as Cristina grabs her luggage from the trunk. "To celebrate the end of your research."

Cristina laughs. "More like the beginning of something greater."

"Well," Meredith says. "Cheers to that."

As Cristina waves to Meredith and her kids, she makes her way up the steps and finds that the door is slightly opened. Owen had told her that he would be in surgery when she arrived, but he didn't think he would leave the door unlocked, never mind gaping. Slowly, she pushes it fully open and steps into a darkness. For a moment, Cristina fears she has the wrong house, but then she notices the same marble counters, and familiar faces in frames along the kitchen hallway.

"Owen?"

She sets down her luggage and holds her bag, along with the creepy clown in it, close to her chest. Anxiously, she walks past the kitchen and gasps when she sees Owen, at the dining room table, with a single candle over a batch of brownies. When he looks up at her, he grins, standing up.

"What is this?" Cristina asks, walking closer with a sly smirk on her face.

"Welcome back," he says, taking her hand. He kisses her, once, then again, longer and fuller. "Want a brownie?"

Cristina laughs, pushing him playfully. "I thought you were in surgery."

"Your flight was two hours late," he tells her, his arms finding their way around her waist. "Plus I wanted to do something special for you."

As Owen leans in to kiss her again, he notices the clown in between them. "What's this?" he asks, grabbing the stuffed clown from Cristina's bag and looking at her curiously.

"It's for Beau," she says sheepishly.

Owen bursts out laughing, not unlike the way Meredith had just a few minutes earlier. He sets the doll on the dining room table and reaches out to pull back some of the hair in Cristina's face. "He's with his mom tonight, but thank you," he says softly. "He'll love it."

"Good," Cristina says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Because kids who are afraid of clowns are pansies."

Without another word, Owen lifts Cristina into his arms, his lips finding its way to her mouth again. They topple over each other, as they make their way up the staircase, laughing as they sprawl onto their bed. She looks around the room, then back at him, touching his face lightly as the corner of his lips touch the side of her hand.

And as she kisses him again, with the night rolling over them, Cristina knows that there isn't anything that feels better than coming home.

* * *

 **A/N: So this is where I leave you. I just wanted to thank you guys so much for all the reviews. It was such a joy writing this, and I'm so happy and grateful that you've taken time out to read and respond. It means so much!**

 **I don't think that Cristina and Owen will ever stop being complicated. They are the definition of complicated, and they will continue to have bumps in the road in their journey together. I definitely don't mean to be haste, even if this particular ending seems like it. I find comfort in the ambiguity of it all... that we have this peace of mind that they are always going to be together, in some capacity, but that we are left with imagining the details of where their future might be.**

 **Anyways! Thank you again for reading, and indulging in my random rants. I do have a few more C/O ideas in mind, so maybe they'll come to life in the near future. :)**


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